Israel’s Supreme Court approves extending surrogacy to same-sex couples

The Israeli Supreme Court has failed this Sunday to extend the rights that vetoed surrogacy to same-sex couples and single men and has ordered Parliament to legislate on the matter within a maximum period of six months.

Many have been the organizations that have repeatedly fought in that country for its legislation to make this change possible because currently, surrogacy, only heterosexual couples and single women could benefit from it.

Sentence with this enlargement of the rights to same-sex couples puts an end to more than eleven years of legal battle of Etai Pnkas Arad and Yoav Arad Pinkas, who appealed these laws that limit surrogacy to heterosexual couples and women with genetic link with the baby, reports newspaper ‘The Times of Israel’.

In February 2020 the Supreme already repealed uA controversial law in this regard and gave the Israeli Parliament a year to enact a new rule because this law “disproportionately violates the right to equality and the right to parenthood of these groups and is therefore illegal.”

Last week the Israeli Government asked the Supreme Court to rule because it considered “non-viable” a modification of the questioned law in the current political situation. The result is this sentence that reduces the term.

The opposition against the government

The Israeli coalition government includes right-wing, centrist, left and even Islamist formation and its parliamentary majority is barely enough to sustain the Executive and the opposition systematically votes against the Government even on issues on which they ideologically agree.

«This case has been active for six years and once determined that the current system is unconstitutional, the ‘lack of political viability’ cannot justify the serious violation of basic rights “, explained the president of the Supreme Court, Esther Hayut. In a period of six months, the limitations currently in force for surrogacy will be canceled, Hayut stressed.

«We have won! And it’s final! “, have celebrated the plaintiffs in a statement. “It is a great step towards equality, not only for the LGBTI community in Israel, but for everyone in this country. This decision is important to everyone because any arbitrary discrimination is a disgrace to the country. No one has the right to discriminate against them and deny them access to something just because they are not a man and a woman ”, they have argued.

Finally, equality!

Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, the openly gay prime minister in Israel’s history, also welcomed the ruling. “At last, equality!” He proclaimed.

Instead, the leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, Aryeh Deri, has lamented the ‘serious setback for the identity of the Jewish State. For Yaakov Litzman, from the United Torah Judaism party, it is a decision “that endangers the future of the Jewish people and destroys the character of the state and Jewish tradition.”

The far right Bezalel Smotrich, from Zionismo Religios, has warned that the “trafficking of women in order to have surrogate pregnancies” is legitimized.