Israeli Supreme Court OKs surrogacy for same sex-couples, single men

In a win for LGBTQ activists, on Sunday Israel’s High Court of Justice gave the green light for same-sex couples to use surrogates to become parents. 

Last year, the court struck down a contentious 2018 law that barred gay couples and single fathers from using surrogates, saying the law “disproportionately harmed the right to equality and the right to parenthood.” 

Israeli lawmakers were given a year to pass a new law, but the Knesset blew through the March 1 deadline and the July 6 extension. 

The court said Sunday, “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.”

In the court’s decision, Chief Justice Esther Hayut wrote that the phrase “intended parents” in the surrogacy law “can be interpreted to refer to heterosexual couples, same-sex couples, single women and single men.” The surrogacy restrictions must be lifted within half a year, the court said. 

Itai and Yoav Pinkas Arad, the original plaintiffs who petitioned the High Court in 2011 to allow them the use of a surrogate, praised the decision.

“We won! And now it’s final,” they said in a statement. “The High Court ruling is a great step forward toward equality not only to the LGBTQ.”

Israeli Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz tweeted, “Finally, equality!” adding that his ministry will prepare to receive surrogacy requests from men. 

“We will act with responsibility, evenhandedness and equality,” said Horowitz, the openly gay leader of the leftist Meretz party. 

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz also welcomed the ruling. Religious political parties slammed the court’s decision, with ultra-Orthodox Shas leader Aryeh Deri calling it “a grave blow to the state’s Jewish identity.”