Aggregated News
On Dec. 7, 2023, the first night of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, 51-year-old Sharon Eisenkot heard the knock on the door that every Israeli parent with a child serving in the military dreads. Soldiers had come to inform her that her 19-year-old son, Maor, had been killed in combat in Gaza. The army offered her the opportunity to have her son’s sperm retrieved and frozen, using a process known as postmortem sperm retrieval (PMSR). Eisenkot, a mother of three, gave her permission.
During the Gaza conflict, Israeli medical centers were on call 24 hours a day to perform PMSR. There are four main fertility clinics tasked with keeping up with the demand and the constraints of the 72-hour window for collecting viable sperm postmortem. While the process and storage are state-funded, a local family court must grant permission to implant any PMRS for conception.
Last July, a family court in Eisenkot’s home city of Eilat ruled that she could have a grandchild via a surrogate, a woman Eisenkot chose, who agreed to co-parent the child with her. The case...