After Netanyahu Flip-Flop, Israel Continues Ban On Gay Surrogacy

At Issue: Doron Gidony, left, and his partner, Doron Mamet, paid $140,000 to have a surrogate mother from America carry their baby. It is illegal for two men to use a surrogate in Israel. Image by COURTESY OF DORON MAMET

By JTA July 19, 2018

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Knesset passed a surrogacy law that expands those eligible to include single women, but excludes single men and gay couples.

The legislation passed Wednesday night by a vote of 59 to 52.

Following the vote, hundreds of demonstrators blocked streets in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. LGBTQ groups called for a nationwide general strike on Sunday to protest the exclusion of same-sex couples in the legislation. Many medium and large Israeli companies, and at least one public hospital, said they will allow their workers to participate in the strike.

The local divisions of several international companies, including Microsoft and Apple, announced they would support financially any employees who want to start a family though surrogacy.

Before the vote on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reversed course on the legislation. Prior to the vote he had said on Facebook that denying surrogacy rights to single men “simply isn’t fair. It needs to be corrected.”

Nevertheless, he voted against a proposed amendment that would have extended access to surrogacy to single men, despite saying he would vote for it.

Netanyahu said following the vote: “Today we voted in favor of a law for mothers. I told MK Ohana ahead of time that I would not support his current amendment because it would topple the law and then mothers would not have access to surrogacy.” Haredi Orthodox political parties had threatened to topple the government if the law did not exclude single men and gay couples.

Knesset member Amir Ohana is the first openly gay man from Netanyahu’s Likud Party to serve in the legislature.

Under the new law, a family may have five children by surrogacy instead of the two now allowed, and a surrogate can give birth five times, including her own children, and up to age 39.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO