Question:
My wife is pregnant within the first 40 days. I think I had improper thoughts while having relations with her that night (Not sure when she conceived exactly). I feel terrible as I learned that having improper thoughts during relations damages the child on a spiritual sense. Is there any way halachically to have an abortion or take supplements (herbs or over loading on vitamin C) that can help cause a miscarriage? If not what can I do? I’m an emotional wreck knowing I may have damaged my kid and now I must live with the consequences. Any advice would be helpful.
Answer:
Chas V’shalom to have an abortion or to do anything that will harm your innocent child. Although there is such a concept that one’s thoughts during relations affect the child, remember that it works both ways, and having the correct thoughts affects the child positively. Therefore, make sure to have positive thoughts during relations throughout the pregnancy, and this will surely affect your child positively.
Aside from this, the Steipler zt”l wrote in a letter ( I don’t know where) regarding something similar, that if a person teaches torah to his child, and the child learns torah, then he doesn’t have to be worried about these things. (It doesn’t mean that he can have improper thoughts, but that the torah will protect the child). A third idea is to make sure that you daven, a lot for the ruchnius well being of your children. (This is something that every parent should be careful to do for their children. It is not enough to send them to a frum school, we must daven to H-shem as often as we can, that they grow up correctly, and be yirei shomayim, baalei middos tovos and talmidei chachamim.
H-shem should help you that you child should grow up healthy, and have yiras shomayim, and you and your wife should have a lot of naches from him/ her.
