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The Mishna on our daf teaches that all agree that there is no significance to a statement made by a man who tells his wife in advance that he ratifies all vows that she takes for the foreseeable future.
If, however, he tells her in advance that he is nullifying all of her nedarim, Rabbi Eliezer rules that he has the ability to do so, while the Hakhamim disagree, arguing that he only has the ability to annul her vows after he hears that she has accepted them.
They said to Rabbi Eliezer: If a mikvah, which raises those that were tamei from their tumah (and renders them tahor), but cannot prevent a tahor from becoming tamei (if he touches a sheretz while in a mikvah, he will become tamei); so, a person, who cannot raise those things that are tamei from their tumah (if he swallows a ring that is tamei and then regurgitates it, it will remain tamei), certainly the halacha should be that a person cannot prevent something that is tahor from becoming tamei (if he swallows a ring that is tahor and enters a room that contains a corpse, the ring will become tamei).
The rabbis speak about the power of a t’vilah to return a person from a state of impurity to a state of purity. But this process does not render a person immune to future impurity, nor does it render an object impure if that object is swallowed by a person before immersion.
The Minchas Chinuch (263:3) asks: How can Rabbi Akiva in Chulin (72a) rule that a fetus inside of its mother’s womb can Biblically contract tumah? Shouldn’t the fetus be regarded as a “swallowed item,” and therefore, be shielded by the mother’s body from becoming tamei?
He answers that the fetus is considered like a thigh of its mother and therefore is rendered tamei just like any other one of the mother’s limbs.
We review the issue of tum’ah beluah and recent problems with ultrasonography of potential fetal kohanim.