ASSISTED REPRODUCTION IN ISRAEL: law, culture, and religion

Intro -- Contents -- Assisted Reproduction in Israel: Law, Religion and Culture -- Abstract -- Keywords -- Introduction -- Part 1 The Right to Procreate in Surrogacy and Egg Donation: Legal Arrangements, Difficulties, and Challenges -- I Background -- II Surrogacy and Egg Donation: Restricted Openness -- A Preserving the Traditional, Heterosexual Family Structure -- B The Centrality of Genetic Connections -- C Protecting Religious Interests -- III Proposals for Changing the Current Legal Situation -- Part 2 The Right to Posthumous Fertilization -- I Background -- II The Parents' Right to Posthumous Fertilization -- III The Future of the Parents' Right to Posthumous Fertilization: Two Concepts of the Right to Procreation -- A The Supreme Court vs. Proposed Legislation: Two Concepts -- B The Ancient Predecessor of the Two-Concepts Model -- IV Posthumous Fertilization: Modern Jewish Law -- V Summary -- Part 3 Conceptual Implications of the Modern Right to Procreate -- I Background -- II Israeli Family Law Concepts of Parenthood: Considerate Functionalism -- III Jewish Law Concepts of Parenthood in the Israeli Context -- IV Conclusions: Functional Parenthood and Conceptual Dynamism -- Part 4 The Modern Right to Procreate: Basic Jewish Law Approaches -- I Background -- II Areas of Tension -- III Jewish Law under Societal Pressure -- IV Closing Remarks -- References -- A. Scholarly References -- B. Jewish Law Sources -- a. Bible and Talmud -- b. Rabbinic Literature -- C. Israeli Law -- a. Legislation -- b. Verdicts -- c. Other Legal Sources -- D. Media and Other Sources

The main argument in this BRP is that assisted reproduction in Israel gives expression to and develops the right to procreate. It is a complex right, and therefore at times no consensus has been reached on the form of its actual application (as in the case of surrogacy and egg donation, and, from a different direction, in that of posthumous sperm retrieval). This right, however, despite the debates on its boundaries, is widely accepted, practiced, and even encouraged in the Israeli context, with a constructive collaboration of three main elements: the Israeli civil legal system, religious law (which in the context of the Israeli majority is Jewish law), and Israeli society and culture