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Landmark Case Allows Dead Son’s Sperm to Impregnate Surrogate Mother

In a landmark decision by an Israeli court, the parents of a soldier killed in a car accident will be allowed to use their dead son’s sperm to impregnate a surrogate mother and raise the child as if it were their natural offspring. When Omri Shahar died in 2012, his parents ordered the hospital to extract his sperm. The reasoning against the decision was based on the idea of “planned orphan hood” that would create unrealistic expectations while becoming a “living monument” to his/her deceased father. The state argued that to allow the planned insemination of a surrogate would be “dangerous and far reaching.” The case has world-wide ramifications because until now, the egg must be from the surrogate mother or deceased’s wife in order to impregnate with his sperm. In the Shahar case, the wife of the deceased declined to bear a child with her late husband’s sperm but supported the efforts of her in-laws to proceed with a surrogate and raise the child themselves.