Q&A: Hello Rabbi
Hello Rabbi
Question
I’ve recently been dealing with the issue of surrogacy, and I looked a bit at what you write about it. I saw that in your opinion, one should not prevent a woman from being a surrogate, since she has the judgment to decide whether she wants it or not. In general, of course, you’re right, but one has to remember that since large sums of money are involved (and the same applies to prostitution), they can blind a person and cause him or her to reach a decision that in fact he or she does not really want. (It reminds me of the column you wrote about a person who fails in a transgression: ostensibly this is what he wants, but in practice the feeling is that it is nevertheless some different force that takes over a person and prevents him from making the right decision.)
Therefore, in general, one should certainly avoid paternalism, but when it comes to matters in which the drive for money or other strong urges takes over and prevents a person from making the right long-term decision, in my opinion there is room to consider outside committees that are not influenced by these factors, to examine whether this is a moral act.
Answer
Hello,
I no longer remember exactly what your remarks are referring to. In general, I think there is no way to prevent a person from conducting himself in a way that does not harm others, if he is an adult and makes a free decision on his own. Financial considerations are part of the decision. A person also decides to become a basketball player, and that will injure him several times and maybe even severely. And likewise with mountain climbing, smoking cigarettes, and so on. Regulation should only make sure there is no fraud and that all the information is fully available and taken into account. Beyond that, he has the right to make any decision he wants. If this places a burden on the public (who will have to treat him medically) or harms another person, then there is room for intervention.
Discussion on Answer
If not from a religious point of view, I don’t think I would stop him. Only if, in my assessment, he is not acting with full judgment. The line is of course delicate (because if someone does something that seems very irrational to me, one can argue that he is not acting with sound judgment).
Let me put it this way: it is justified to stop him only if it is clear to me that once the episode passes, he himself will thank me for it.
Okay, and if based on studies you had conducted and the like, you knew that most people engaged in a certain profession would later regret what they had done and would prefer to turn back the clock, would you prevent a particular individual from doing something on the grounds that he presumably belongs to the majority?
I don’t know how to give a general answer. It depends on how large the majority is, how unreasonable the minority is, and how significant the price is.
As for following the majority, Rabbi Shimon Shkop already wrote that in a majority created by people’s behavior and choices, we do not follow the majority. For example, if most people sell oxen for plowing, and a person comes and says he bought it for slaughter, there is nothing problematic about that, and his disputant cannot claim that we should follow the majority. The person who says he bought the ox for slaughter is making a reasonable claim. He decided to conduct himself like the minority, and there is no reason not to believe him.
I discussed this in the columns on following the majority in legal evidence and the law of fixed doubt. Columns 227-8, and more.
I’m not sure one can say that here this is a majority dependent on human choice, since as stated, in cases like these the blindness caused by money and the quick payoff and the like blinds people, and causes most of them to make decisions that in hindsight they regret. Obviously after the fact, if you ask that same woman who turned to prostitution whether she is happy about it and she says yes, then you cannot say that she is lying, etc. But it may be that from the outset it would indeed be possible to prevent her by force from becoming a prostitute, because most are not happy about it after the fact.
Okay, obviously in every profession there is some level of risk versus reward, and there are also gray areas and additional considerations, but it seems that there is a certain standard that fits most people, which determines what is considered reasonable to accept money for and what is not. I assume you would stop a person from committing suicide if he had been promised that his family would receive a million dollars in return, and you would not argue that this is his will and his right because to him the money is worth more than his life (without getting into the halakhic aspect of the story, of course).