Tuesday, December 24, 2002
Israeli court rules against surrogacy for single women
A story published today by the Haaretz Daily reports that a seven-justice
panel of Israel’s High Court of Justice unanimously ruled yesterday that
single women would not be able to use the services of a surrogate to bring
children into the world. At the same time, the judges called on the
country's legislators to address the distress of single women who have no
other way of giving birth and find a way to make this possible.
The petition that was rejected had been submitted by New Family (Mishpaha
Hadasha), an organization dedicated to advancing family rights, on behalf of
a single woman who underwent a hysterectomy as a result of illness. The
woman, who is in her forties, managed to save some of her ova for
extra-uterine fertilization, only to be turned down by the authorities when
she asked for a surrogate.
The petition said that the law on surrogacy, which allows couples to use
services of a surrogate only when the father's sperm is used, is
discriminatory and contradicts the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Freedom.
The petition also claimed that the surrogacy committee decision prevents the
establishment of single-parent families using surrogacy, despite the fact
that the state has recognized such families for a long time.
Judge Mishael Cheshin, who wrote the verdict, noted that there is no
ambiguity in the law as it exists at present and it does not permit
surrogate mothers for single women or couples where there are two members of
the same sex. He accepted the charge that this meant the law was
discriminatory against single women. At the same time, he rejected the
prosecution's argument that a single mother of this kind could not ensure
the well-being of a child.
The number of single women who are mothers in Israel has increased threefold
over the past decade, and today they total more than 10,000. Fourteen
percent of the single-mother population were never married, almost twice
their rate a decade ago. Most unmarried mothers have one child, and the
total number of children of single women is 13,000.
