Attorney-general: Let single women use surrogate mothers

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit on Tuesday urged the government to change the law on surrogacy to allow all women to make use of the process on medical grounds, regardless of their marital status.

Mandelblit said the current law, which does not allow a single woman to use a surrogate mother, was flawed and unlawful. All women should be given the option of having a child through a surrogate if they are medically unable to bear the child themselves, he said.

But the attorney general did not recommend the same standard be applied to single men or same-sex couples, which are not permitted under Israeli law to have children through a surrogate.

Mandelblit was responding to a High Court of Justice petition by Israelis opposing the existing law.

Currently, single parents-to-be must go abroad to obtain a surrogate parent, regardless of sexual orientation.

A 2010 panel, known as the Mor-Yosef committee, had recommended Israel adopt broader policies on surrogacy, including opening the option for single women and men.

Former health minister Yael German (Yesh Atid) had adopted the recommendations and her Yesh Atid party had advanced a bill in the last Knesset to change the laws, but it failed to pass before the Knesset dissolved.

Israeli restrictions on surrogacy have prompted many same-sex couples to fly abroad in order to obtain a surrogate mother, a process both costly and complicated.

The prime destination for foreign surrogacy used to be India until last year, when that country made it illegal to be a surrogate for same-sex couples. Thailand was another favored location, but a recently introduced Thai law under which babies are automatically granted citizenship according to the citizenship of their birth mothers complicated matters.

In January 2014, following an incident in which several same-sex couples were temporarily stuck in Thailand with their newborn or soon-to-be-born babies, a government statement instructed Israeli homosexual couples to avoid surrogacy procedures in the Asian country, and warned that as of November 30, 2014, the Israeli government would no longer provide assistance to parents of babies born there.

Israel suffers from a shortage of surrogate mothers. Between 2007 and 2012, the Walla news site reported, 313 Israelis found surrogate mothers abroad, compared to only 228 in Israel. The imbalance has become even more pronounced recently: In 2012, 126 people went through the process abroad, while only 41 did so in Israel.

Lazar Berman contributed to this report.