The Predicaments of Koshering Prenatal Diagnosis and the Rise of a New Rabbinic Leadership
By Tsipy Ivry
English
The article explores the predicaments of navigating the complex authority structure of observant Judaism in Israel faced by an institute of rabbinic consultants in their endeavor to craft “kosher”—halachically appropriate—routes to using prenatal diagnosis of fetal anomalies. The institute creates public spaces to publicize rabbinic disagreements over prenatal diagnosis, emphasizes that dilemmas of termination should be ruled case by case, and offers its services of professional “moral pioneering”. Here is a case of biomedicine inspiring a new kind of religious leadership that transforms the structure of rabbinic authority.
Keywords
- prenatal diagnosis
- post diagnostic termination of pregnancy
- observant Judaism
- moral pioneering
- rabbinic authority
- Israel