As is well known, Israel was
founded with the premise of providing a homeland for the Jewish people, many of
whom had survived the Holocaust. Since the time of the Book of Genesis, Jews
have been told that it is their duty to “be fruitful and multiply”. Over it, since
the establishment of Israel, it has faced ongoing challenges from its neighbours
and war has, in many ways, become a recurring feature of its existence. As a
result, the death of young soldiers in armed forces has become a pervasive
phenomenon. The result is: tragic consequences of bereaved families, orphaned
children, and children who have never known their fathers.
Amidst such a threatening
scenario, it is no wonder, today, Israel has the highest number of IVF cycles
per capita in the world, duly aided by its advanced medical techniques.
Perhaps, it is the only country in the world that fully covers the cost of IVF
treatment up to the birth of two babies. In the same vein, the State is even covering
the cost of PMSR, sperm storage, IVF, parental care and delivery – all in the
anxiety of maintaining the Jewish race.
PMSR is relatively a simple medical procedure performed by a surgeon, usually
an urologist. It involves opening the testis and taking a biopsy. As these are
usually fertile men, a small biopsy is said to be enough to isolate sperm cells
from the collected tissue. Then checking their motility and other signs of
viability under a microscope, doctors pick up the promising sperms and freeze
them for future use in assisted reproductive technology. As the sperms can
remain alive for days after death, doctors usually freeze sperm collected up to
80 hours after death that are found viable. Nonetheless, the sooner the sperm
is retrieved, the more likely it is to lead to successful conception.
It was Dr Cappy Rothman who,
for the first time in the year 1980, successfully retrieved sperm from a
32-year-old dead person in Los Angeles and frozen it at the request of the
deceased’s father. This was of course never used. Later it is reported that he
performed PMSR 180 times but preserved sperm was used hardly in 10 cases for
conception. Those PMSRs were said to have been carried out more to enable
people to pass “through the grieving period”.
Today, PMSR, perhaps of the ethical
and legal issues involved, is banned in Germany, Sweden, France, Hungary and
Slovenia. It is however legal subject to certain conditions in the UK, Canada,
Netherlands, Greece, Estonia, Japan and the Czech Republic. There is no
legislation covering PMSR in the US but it has become increasingly acceptable. Conceiving
children from the dead partner’s sperm is however not that remarkable around
the world.
But asking for grandchildren in
the PSMR way has today become an almost exclusively Israeli phenomenon. It is
the grieving parents, who, in their anxiety to have something to hold on, are opting
for PSMR route to at least have a grandchild of their own. Maybe, with the
motto, “why not cause happiness for those who lost their precious sons in war?”
the State has removed restrictions on permissions required for retrieving sperm
from the dead: As a result, today, in addition to partners, even parents of the
dead can request a retrieval.
Today, Israel maintains a sperm
bank at a Tel Aviv’s Medical Center, in which are stored more than 50000 sperm
samples in numbered vails, frozen at -1960C. It contains sperm collected from young
cancer patients well before the commencement of chemotherapy and from trans
people before their gender reassignment for future use. It also contains the
sperm collected from the bodies of soldiers who were killed during or after the
recent Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. Every care is taken to maintain the
right temperature all the times by constant monitoring by the staff, who
believe that what they are caring for is priceless.
The medical profession of
Israel is indeed offering a scope not only for a kind of biological continuity
for the families who lost their precious sons/ life partners in the war but
also offering a solace to the grieving families employing sophisticated medical
procedures. Despite all these technological advancements and the outcomes
thereof, one cannot deny the fact that such fathering a child by a dead soldier
is no replacement to the lost son/partner.
That aside, immaterial of the
fact of conceiving children either during or after their father’s death, Israel
is set to have a lot of new orphans who have never seen their father. As a
social activist commented, “A whole generation is going to be dealing with such
difficult beginnings”.
But the tragic irony of the
ongoing conflict is that not only do Israelis face a painful and uncertain future,
but Palestinians also share the same fate. Particularly, people of Gaza under
the Hamas rule may face a far more dire situation, for the blockade, ongoing
confrontations and limited international aid leave many without access to even
basic services. Contrarily, Israel, despite the conflict can provide its
citizens substantial medical and financial assistance.
These tragic events posit a battery
of questions: Why this mad killing of each other? Which religion could justify such
orphaning of children? What for this mutual destruction? Why do so many countries
aid this devastation to happen? …
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