Caving to ultra-Orthodox, Netanyahu about-faces on gay surrogacy rights

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday dashed to the Knesset for the express purpose of voting against a measure that would have extended surrogacy rights to same-sex couples — two days after publishing a video explaining why he supports the idea.

The surrogacy bill passed the Knesset vote as expected, but without the clause allowing it for men, which was proposed by openly gay MK Amir Ohana, a member of Netanyahu’s own Likud party.

Netanyahu was acting on the demands of the ultra-Orthodox parties, which oppose giving gay men the right to father children through surrogacy, Channel 10 news reported. In return, the ultra-Orthodox parties reportedly agreed to support the Jewish nation-state bill, another controversial piece of legislation, which is up for its final votes this week.

MKs Yoel Hasson and Stav Shaffir of the opposition Zionist Union faction were removed from the plenum hall for raucously booing the prime minister during the vote.

MK Yair Lapid, leader of the opposition Yesh Atid party, called Netanyahu a “liar.”

“Two day ago during a Likud faction meeting Netanyahu said that he supports a change in the bill to enable LGBT people to become parents,” he said in a statement. “On the same day, he posted a video in which he repeated — both in words and in writing — his commitment to support the change… I have never said this before about a prime minister of Israel, but I have no choice: liar.”

Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid speaks from the Knesset plenum on March 13, 2018. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Netanyahu was compelled to participate in the vote due to the government’s narrow majority in parliament and the intention of MK Merav Ben-Ari, of the coalition Kulanu party, to vote in favor of the clause allowing gay couples to use a surrogate. Without Netanyahu’s nay vote, the contentious clause would likely have passed along with the rest of the bill.

Sources close to Netanyahu said that the prime minister will support legislating an extension of surrogacy to gay men in the next parliament session.

Ohana and Ben-Ari announced they had submitted an updated bill that will be brought up immediately with the opening of the next session, and which will be supported by Netanyahu’s Likud party and Kulanu.

“In light of the expected approval tonight of the Health Ministry’s surrogacy law, and following the positive things the prime minister said about the matter, we formulated and submitted a bill that will edit a number of changes in the surrogacy law,” the lawmakers said in a statement. “We will sign up for the law a long list of MKs from the coalition and the opposition — and act vigorously to advance it.”

Committee chairman Amir Ohana leads the joint Knesset and Constitution Committee meeting discussing the proposed National Law, at the Knesset, on July 10, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

On Monday, in a Hebrew-language video posted to his Facebook page, Netanyahu explained why he supported the extension of the surrogacy law to single men, effectively allowing gay couples to have children via surrogacy.

“Single mother have the right to the surrogacy process, but single fathers don’t have that right,” Netanyahu said. “It simply isn’t fair. It needs to be corrected. Therefore, I notified [Ohana] today during the Likud faction meeting that I will support the bill he is proposing.”

Ohana had previously proposed an amendment that would have included same-sex couples in the upcoming bill, but it was voted down by the Knesset Labor, Welfare and Health Committee last week.

A surrogacy agreement involves a woman who is willing to carry a pregnancy for another individual or couple, who will then become the child’s legal parent or parents after birth.

The amendment to surrogacy law extends eligibility for the procedure to single women, but denies same-sex couples the right to have children via a surrogate. Until now the right has only been extended to married, heterosexual couples.

In a further change, surrogacy was previously limited to two children per family, but the new amendment increases the number of children per family unit to five.

In addition, the age limit for surrogate mothers has been raised from 38 to 39, and a surrogate will now be able to give birth five times (including her own children) instead of four as the law currently mandates.