In a precedent-setting move, the Ramat Gan Family Court on Sunday approved the request of a family to allow the sperm of their slain son to be used for insemination.

The son, K., was killed by Palestinian sniper fire while serving in a selected infantry corps battalion of the Israel Defense Forces in the Gaza Strip in August 2002.

The sperm will be used to impregnate a woman who the soldier had never met. Judge Alisa Miller said that the decision was made in accordance with the parents' request, adding that it was an isolated ruling that would have no bearing on future decisions in similar cases. "The ruling resolves the present incident but does not affect other incidents," she said.

	Advertisement

The petition for use of the soldier's sperm was submitted to the court on behalf of the family by attorney Irit Rosenblum.

According to the petition, the soldier had discussed with his family his desire to start a family. After his death, a sample of his sperm was preserved at the Sheba Medical Center and his mother established contact with women interested in using his sperm for impregnation.

Some 40 women responded to the soldier's mother's call, and one woman was chosen to carry the sperm. The soldier's parents and the potential mother asked the hospital to carry out the insemination.

The hospital, at the instruction of Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, refused to grant the parents' request without court approval.

The family wrote in its petition that it would have been the wish of their dead son to use his sperm to impregnate the woman and said that it was their right as potential grandparents to carry out the insemination. They promised that they would keep to their role as grandparents and would not interfere in the life of the child.

The request was approved despite a ruling made three years ago, according to which the parents of the dead have no standing rights in these sorts of issues.

This is the first time a court has approved the use of a deceased man's sperm for the insemination of a woman he had never met. This is also the first time the court has approved a sperm donation in which the donor and the recipient did not know each other, yet the donor's identity was not concealed.

The court had in the past approved the request of a woman to use her dead partner's sperm for her own impregnation.