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Judaism and contraception

Contraception, including artificial contraception, is permitted in Judaism in appropriate circumstances.

Reform and Liberal schools of Judaism allow birth control for a wide range of reason. Orthodox Judaism is more restrictive.

The methods of contraception allowed under Jewish law are those that do not damage the sperm or stop it getting to its intended destination. These are the contraceptive pill and the IUD.

The religious view on birth control is based on two principles:

• it is a commandment to marry and have children
• it is forbidden to 'waste seed' (to emit semen while at the same time preventing conception)

The modern Orthodox position permits the use of contraception in these cases:

• when pregnancy or childbirth might harm the mother
• to limit the number of children in a family for the benefit of the family
• to delay or space out having children
  • but a married couple should not use contraception for the selfish reason of avoiding having children altogether.

Methods

The female birth control pill is favoured by Jewish couples because male birth control methods are frowned on. This is because they 'waste seed' and because the commandment to have children is primarily directed at men.

Condoms are particularly unacceptable because they block the passage of semen, and because they reduce the pleasure husband and wife get from sex and so interfere with one of the natural purposes of intercourse.

Rabbis disagree about the use of the diaphragm - some forbid it because it blocks the passage of semen, while others state that it is not forbidden because the semen enters the woman's body in a normal manner.

A birth control method that led to breakthrough bleeding would be a concern for Orthodox Jews as sex is not permitted in the presence of blood. This affects some types of pill and some IUDs.

Contraception and the Talmud

Judaism has had a largely positive attitude to sex since God commanded his people to 'be fruitful and multiply' (Genesis I:28; 9:1). Christianity's suspicions of sex as an element of 'the fall' are absent.

The repeated command to have children looks like an order from God for the Jews not to use birth control, but early rabbis explained that this was a limited command, and that once a couple had produced a family of reasonable size (2 sons, or a son and a daughter, depending on which rabbi you follow) they were free to avoid having further children.

Whether abstinence or artificial contraception should be used was another problem for the early rabbis. The more orthodox taught that anything that involved wasting seed (i.e. where semen was prevented from fertilising an egg) was wrong.

A passage in the Talmud called "The Beraita of the Three Women" is the basis for much Jewish teaching on contraception.

It states that a woman may use a "moch" (a contraceptive device) in three circumstances where a pregnancy would cause harm:

• the woman is underage
• the woman is pregnant
• the woman is still breast-feeding

Other Talmudic passages permit women to drink potions that make them infertile, and this doctrine is now used to permit the use of the birth control pill.

Find out more

• Contraception ethics