Israel has passed a law allowing same-sex couples, single men and trans people to access surrogacy in the country, ending a years-long legal battle between LGBTQ+ activists and the government.
Israel’s ministry of health issued a letter on Jan. 4 notifying the public of a new policy granting surrogacy rights to “any person in Israel,” set to take effect next week. While same-sex couples have enjoyed full adoption rights since 2008, surrogacy was only available for single women and heterosexual couples, limiting the ability of many to become parents.
Those barred from accessing surrogacy services often had to travel abroad in order to fulfill their dreams of parenthood.
Government leaders lauded the end of Israel’s surrogacy ban as a “historic day” for the country’s LGBTQ+ community. “Today we put an end to injustice and discrimination,” said Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz during a press briefing, according to The Times of Israel. “Everyone has the right to parenthood.”
Israel’s LGBTQ+ community has long fought to ensure equal access to surrogacy for all citizens. Gay couple Etai and Yoav Pinkas Arad twice petitioned the High Court of Justice to be granted the right to conceive through surrogacy, a process of assisted reproduction that involves having a third party carry a fetus to term. After a years-long delay, the court claimed in a 2017 ruling that granting surrogacy rights to same-sex couples is a complex issue that goes beyond its purview.
“As we have often noted, developing policy, particularly policy in regard to sensitive issues at the heart of the public agenda and matters of professional expertise, is not the job of this Court, which lacks the resources of professional knowledge available to the legislature,” the court wrote at the time.
But the High Court went on to reverse its own decision in 2020, ordering lawmakers in the Knesset, Israel’s unicameral legislature, to draft a surrogacy law within a year’s time. When parliamentarians failed to meet that binding deadline, judges issued an order last July effectively rewriting the country’s laws, with the new policies set to take effect in six months.
“Since for more than a year the state has done nothing to advance an appropriate amendment to the law, the court ruled that it cannot abide the continued serious damage to human rights caused by the existing surrogacy arrangement,” the court ruled.
With the ban set to finally be lifted next week, LGBTQ+ advocates celebrated the coming milestone.
“After years of struggle—in the streets, in the courts, in the Knesset and in the government, we have succeeded and this is the achievement of us all,” the Association of LGBTQ Equality in Israel wrote in a Jan. 5 Facebook post.
To some, however, the achievement may appear to be another example of “pinkwashing,” a term used to describe Israel’s alleged attempt to project a progressive image amid ongoing human rights violations in Palestine. Similar criticisms have been aimed at the Tel Aviv International LGBTQ Film Festival and the city’s annual Pride parade, the latter of which is among the largest in the world.
But despite Israel’s LGBTQ+ friendly image, much progress remains to be made. Although foreign same-sex marriages are recognized, same-sex couples cannot legally marry in Israel. And laws barring discrimination in the workplace only cover sexual orientation, leaving trans workers vulnerable to bias.
Other nations have also made recent strides toward removing discriminatory legislation limiting the reproductive rights of LGBTQ+ people. Last June, France struck down its ban on in vitro fertilization treatments for lesbian couples and single women following the passage of legislation in its parliament. The bill was extremely contentious: its passage required over 500 hours of debate, per U.K. newspaper The Guardian, before winning a near two-thirds majority.
Many countries, including Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Taiwan, continue to outlaw surrogacy for all citizens. Even as France widens legal methods of assisted reproduction, it still fully bans surrogacy.
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