Precedent-setting decision: Horowitz discounted allowing agunot women who are refused a divorce to receive a sperm donation
Today, women need their husbands' approval for in vitro fertilization, but those who refuse a divorce and agunos cannot apply for their permission.
Although the process is halakhically possible so that the descendants will not be declared bastards, the rabbinate opposes it on the grounds of "appearance."
Minister of Health: Non-medical considerations irrelevant to the Ministry's guidelines
Meirav Cohen
17/05/2022
Tuesday, May 17, 2022, 3:30 p.m.
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Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz will instruct the professionals in his office to amend the procedures so that agunot women who are refused a divorce can receive a sperm donation at their request - despite strong opposition from the Chief Rabbinate.
Under the new order, women who are refused a divorce or agunot will present the permit for their mooring, given to them by Social Security, to the relevant authorities, and will most likely be able to conceive from an anonymous or known sperm donor, like other women.
Today married women need to get their husbands permission to perform in vitro fertilization, however those who are denied a divorce and anchors cannot seek their permission, and sometimes spouses even avenge them so that they are not allowed to conceive against their will.
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"Non-medical considerations - not relevant to the firm's guidelines."
Horowitz and Ash (Photo: Reuven Castro)
The "Dead End" organization is available to former Health Minister Yuli Edelstein to promote change for the benefit of women, and the historic move began in his day.
Edelstein sought the consent of the chief rabbis to prevent fear of bastards among the natives, because women who refuse a divorce or agunot are considered single men in terms of Jewish law, and in case they give birth to children who are not their spouses - they will be considered bastards.
Still, the move is possible because halakhically when the operation is performed in IVF and there is no penetration of the male genitalia into the female - the children are not considered bastards.
However, despite the medical possibility of redressing the injustice done to women by their husbands, the rabbis refused to recognize it because of "appearances."
Minister Horowitz and the director general of the Ministry of Health, Nachman Ash, also tried to reach agreements with the rabbinate, but, failing to do so, the minister ordered that the director general's circular be amended even without their consent.
"In this matter as in any medical matter, the only consideration that the Ministry of Health must take into account is the professional health consideration. Non-medical considerations are not relevant to the ministry's guidelines and we will remove them," Horowitz said.
The precedent-setting decision will free the women who are denied a divorce from the shackles of their husbands and the anchored women from their difficult fate, and will allow them to go on with their lives.
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To the full article
Adv. Orit Lahav, CEO of the Dead End organization, welcomed the move.
"We have finally managed to release the womb of the agunah and divorcee women! This amendment brings to the fore all those divorcee and agunot women who are of childbearing age and are interested in having a child who will not be considered a 'bastard' according to halakhah."
"This issue is one of the most painful around the refusal to divorce, because the age of fertility has also become blackmail for the husband. Men who refuse a divorce have held the key to the woman's womb and fertility and many women have had to give up the option of another child because of the law in Israel." "The guidelines of the Ministry of Health and we congratulate Minister Horowitz who lifted the glove and long for a world without anchorage where no woman will have to use this solution just to exercise her basic right to parenthood."
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