Ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism have their beards in a knot over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's public endorsement of an amendment to Israel's law on surrogate parenthood that would make surrogacy an option for single fathers.
While Israel recently altered its surrogacy law to make the procedure available to single women, single men – regardless of their sexual orientation – who wish to become fathers through a surrogate mother must pursue this process outside the country.
In January of this year, Habayit Hayehudi MK Moti Yogev, in response to demands by MKs and LGBTQ rights activists that single men – gay or straight – be made eligible to use the services of a surrogate, declared that Israel would "not be a world leader in perversion."
On Monday, Netanyahu recorded a statement in which he said that MK Amir Ohana, the first openly gay Likud legislator, had spoken with him a number of times about Israel's surrogacy law, pushing to make single men eligible to use the surrogacy process.
Ohana has long been an advocate for issues involving nontraditional families. He and his partner are the fathers of fraternal twins through a surrogate mother. A year ago, Ohana was suspended from the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee after refusing to vote with the coalition in protest of the government's opposition to same-sex adoption.
The prime minister said that Ohana had raised a very cogent point – that single women in Israel are entitled to become parents using a surrogate, but single men were barred from that same option.
"It's simply not fair, and we need to fix this," Netanyahu said, adding that he had told Ohana that he would support the MK's proposed amendment to the current law.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Knesset plenum, haredi legislators threatened that if Netanyahu did not withdraw his support for single fatherhood through surrogacy, they would withhold support from the nation-state bill, a coalition-backed initiative.
In response to the haredi objection, Coalition Chairman MK David Amsalem removed Ohana's proposed amendment from the agenda until the coalition can reach a consensus on it.
