Frozen Embryos Answer

02/25/2024

A. The fetus is not considered to be a life until the head emerges during the birth process.

and

B. Most Orthodox religious authorities allow for the discarding of unused fertilized embryos, but not the use of those embryos in research.

and

C. When a baby is conceived with a donor egg from a non-Jewish woman but carried by a Jewish woman, some rabbis say that since the egg is from a non-Jewish woman, the baby is not halakhically Jewish. Others, however, state that the source of the egg is insignificant compared to the role played by the gestational mother; therefore the child is halakhically Jewish.

and

D. Until the 40th day after conception, the embryo is considered to be “merely water.”

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