Inside Israel’s Fight to Make Fathers of Its Dead Soldiers
October 30, 2024 at 12:30AMSince October 7, 2023, the IDF has offered the family of every fallen soldier post-mortem sperm retrieval (PMSR)—meaning, at the same time a family learns of a biologically male soldier’s death, they are asked to make the decision about whether or not to preserve his genetics. It isn’t just spouses who are being asked. The parents of deceased soldiers are faced with the question of whether or not they want to hold onto the possibility of becoming grandparents. Many are saying yes. The phenomenon raises thorny questions about consent and reproductive rights. Did the dead want to be parents? Would they want their own parents to decide who carried their child? Is PMSR fair to the children born as a result of the practice? According to Irit Rosenblum, a prominent lawyer-advocate for PMSR whose work dates back decades, none of this matters*:
Rosenblum began receiving calls from parents whose sons had died in service. They had donated their organs, but no one had ever mentioned the possibility that their sperm could have been preserved. She started investigating, asking fertility doctors what might be medically possible. Then 19-year-old Keivan Cohen was killed serving in Gaza in 2002, and his distraught mother turned to Rosenblum for help on the day of his death — “I knew we had to move fast.” She convinced Israel’s Supreme Court to allow Keivan’s sperm to be extracted. The decision of whether to use it would be taken at a later date, she argued. But when it came to getting the second court order that would result in conception, she faced years of pushback.
“Their attitude was ‘accept the death’. But we didn’t accept it, because we knew we have the technology, we can revive them,” Rosenblum declares, her palms splayed. “It’s the same as finding oil, discovering electricity. Why not use the technology we have?”
After four and a half years, the attorney-general ruled that if the Cohens found a woman willing to carry their grandchild, the court would be prepared to rule on whether Keivan’s sperm could be used. It was a high-profile case, and “hundreds” of women got in touch with Rosenblum, she says, “single women in their late thirties who saw a way to have everything, a family, grandparents, uncles, aunts for the child, a hero as a father, without needing a spouse.” For Rosenblum, it was more evidence of what a great idea this was. “It makes everyone involved happy. The child will be born into a very warm family that wants him to be born. And don’t ask me about the child’s rights, because there is no such thing — nobody asks to be born.”
Of course, I do have to ask her about the child’s rights. This is a child who will be conceived without a father, after all. “I don’t care,” Rosenblum replies. “Once he’s born we must support him, give him the right to be raised in the best way possible. That’s it.” When I suggest that a child created in these circumstances might feel the burden of the hopes and expectations of grandparents who fought so hard to have him or her, she bats the idea away. “This is bullshit. It’s very nice to be born in a great family that loves you, that worked so hard to have you. A child needs love. That’s it.”
*This story is behind a paywall.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2024/10/29/inside-israels-fight-to-make-fathers-of-its-dead-soldiers/
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