Human Reproduction Vol.19, No.9 pp. 1952–1956, 2004 DOI: 10.

1093/humrep/deh360
Advance Access publication July 8, 2004

OPINION
Posthumous sperm retrieval for the purpose of later insemination or
IVF in Israel: an ethical and psychosocial critique
R.Landau
Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus,
Jerusalem 91905, Israel
E-mail: mslanda@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il

In October 2003, the Attorney General of the Government of Israel published guidelines allowing posthumous
sperm retrieval for the purpose of later insemination or IVF by the surviving female partner. This paper presents
an ethical and psycho-social critique of the guidelines, which challenges their basic premise that personal auto-
nomy over-rides any other ethical principle and argues that the autonomy of the adult should not over-ride the
well-being of the offspring. It also shows that, despite the centrality of autonomy in the guidelines, they actually
infringe on the autonomy of the deceased, and pose challenges to that of the surviving partner. It questions the
propriety and very possibility of ascertaining the ‘presumed wishes’ of the deceased for a posthumous child.
Finally, it argues against the document’s presentation of posthumous sperm retrieval as a medical procedure and
contends that, on the contrary, medicine and science are suborned to the exploitation of the dead.

Key words: ethics/Israel/posthumous sperm retrieval

Introduction centrality of autonomy in the guidelines, they actually

In October 2003, the Attorney General of the Government of
Israel published guidelines for posthumous sperm retrieval
for the purpose of later insemination or IVF by the surviving
female partner. The decision to allow the procedure was
made in response to requests for permission for sperm retrie-
val by partners and parents of deceased men in Israel. This
paper presents an ethical and psycho-social critique of the
document and, more broadly, of the entire idea of posthu-
mous conception.
The guidelines outline a two-step procedure. The first step
is sperm retrieval from the dying or deceased man at the
request of his partner, whether she is his wife or not. For
this, it is enough that the wife or other partner make the
request for the sperm to be retrieved. Requests from the
man’s parents or other parties are not entertained. The second
step is authorization for the use of the sperm. The document
makes it clear that sperm retrieval does not necessarily entail
authorization for its use. Permission to use the sperm is to be
determined on a case by case basis in a court of law, in keep-
ing with the man’s dignity and ‘presumed wishes’ (Ministry
of Justice Guidelines of the Attorney General of the Govern-
ment, guideline number 1.2202, 27 October 2003).
The following critique challenges the basic, though
unstated, premise of the Attorney General’s guidelines that
adults’ personal autonomy over-rides the rights and well-
being of the child. It goes on to show that, despite the
1952 Human Reproduction vol. 19 no. 9 q European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology 2004; all rights reserved
infringe on the autonomy of the deceased, and pose chal-
lenges to that of the surviving partner. It questions the propri-
ety and very possibility of ascertaining the ‘presumed
wishes’ of the deceased for a posthumous child. Finally, it
argues against the document’s presentation of posthumous
sperm retrieval as a medical procedure and contends that, on
the contrary, medicine and science are suborned to the
exploitation of the dead.
Adults’ autonomy versus the rights and well-being
of the child
The Attorney General’s guidelines state that there is no
reason to object to the use of a man’s sperm after his death if
his sperm was cryopreserved before he died and he had con-
sented to its posthumous use. Thus, quite astonishingly, post-
humous parenthood itself, as though it were a natural
phenomenon, is not a significant issue in the document. The
substantive issue involved in posthumous parenthood, i.e. the
conception and birth of a planned orphan by a grieving per-
son who has only recently lost her partner, are not even men-
tioned. The decisive factor is the deceased’s will. If the man
took concrete steps towards parenthood, the partner’s request
will be granted. If he made his wish not to become a posthu-
mous parent known, it will not. Underlying the primacy of
place given to the deceased man’s wishes is the principle

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article-abstract/19/9/1952/782272

by guest
on 23 April 2018
 Posthumous sperm retrieval in Israeli—an ethical and psychosocial critique
of autonomy, which requires that competent individuals be
permitted to act as they choose so long as they do not harm
others and that incompetent persons be given the right to pro-
tection when they need it.
But what about the rights and well-being of the planned
child? These are not even mentioned until page 12 of the
13-page Hebrew document. In an earlier paper on planned
orphanhood (Landau, 1999), I discussed the application of
the principle of autonomy in detail and argued against the
reductive views that focus the discussion primarily on the
deceased person’s will. Based on arguments from Cate
(1994), Dworkin (1994), Rachels (1995), Callahan (1996)
and Murray (1996), it has been shown that procreation entails
more than the parents’ personal interests. If the child is
important in and of itself, then one must consider the pain
and suffering of an orphan who is conceived without the
possibility of ever knowing his/her father. An adult’s desire
to give birth to an orphan should not have priority over the
child’s basic right to two living parents, at least at the time
of its conception.
The Attorney General’s guidelines do attempt to address
some of the problems that the planned orphan will encounter.
In order to bestow on the child a minimum legal paternity,
they stipulate that in authorizing the posthumous use of
sperm, the court must instruct the Ministry of the Interior to
register the deceased person as his or her father. This, how-
ever, does very little to resolve two core legal issues involved,
at least in Israel. One is the highly problematic status of chil-
dren born of a father whose identity is not entirely certain.
Because posthumous insemination can take place anywhere
from months to years after the man’s death, there is always,
for the highly religious minded, the possibility of a creeping
doubt as to who the father really is. As long as that is in ques-
tion, the offspring’s possibilities of a Jewish marriage are
highly restricted so as to avoid any possibility of incest. The
other problem is that the offspring remains without the legal
right to inherit, since the inheritance would already have been
dispersed. Yet, even though the guidelines themselves note
these knotty, and perhaps unsolvable, problems, they do not
allow them to interfere with the adults’ autonomy.
We may also question whether the use of medical assist-
ance to bring such an orphan into the world shows proper
regard for its well-being, needs and dignity (Landau, 1999).
In defence of such assistance, it has been argued that since
existence is always preferable to non-existence, the question
of the child’s well-being is irrelevant (Strong et al., 2000).
This justification, however, is not without problems. In view
of the role physicians are willing to play in both abortion and
end of life decisions, the preference of existence over non-
existence cannot be taken as axiomatic. Physicians are will-
ing to co-operate in ending the life of an embryo if there are
medical indications that there may be physical impairment.
Throughout history, loss of a parent in childhood has been
perceived as a major traumatic event in one’s life. Indeed,
the urologist Ohl (2001) maintains that in assisting in the
creation of new life through the retrieval of sperm, it is the
treating physician’s duty to ascertain that the new individual
being created—due, in good measure, to the physician’s
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article-abstract/19/9/1952/782272
by guest
on 23 April 2018
intervention—has a good chance of leading a happy and
healthy life.
Paragraph 3 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child (UN General Assembly, 1989) explicitly states that, in
all issues involving children, the rights of the child have pri-
ority over other interests. Despite this, the current document
clearly prefers the rights of the adults.
The autonomy and welfare of the man and his partner
It is not only that the guidelines give excessive weight to the
adult’s autonomy over the well-being of the child, it is also
that they do not protect that autonomy and may actually
undermine it.
Ironically, the primacy of place given to the deceased
man’s wishes in the guidelines does not prevent the use of
his sperm in the absence of his explicit consent. The guide-
lines give considerable attention to the subject of personal
wishes. When the deceased man’s wishes are unknown, the
guidelines state, there must be very good reason for society
to impede any wish his living partner may have to bear his
offspring. The stated assumption is that couples who live
together, whether in marriage or a common law union, natu-
rally and almost invariably intend to have children at some
time in the future. Thus, in the absence of an explicit objec-
tion, the assumption is that the deceased person would have
wanted to have children with his partner, even after his
death. This assumption is questionable.
For one thing, we cannot be sure that a man who lives with
a woman necessarily wants to have children with her. While
the guidelines do not require marriage, they do not specify
who would qualify as a partner. This means that, in principle,
women in co-habiting relationships may also be considered as
partners. This ignores the growing trend of young people in
Israel, as elsewhere, to postpone marriage and to enter
relationships, including co-habitation, without long-term com-
mitments or any desire for children by the partner.
Moreover, there are indications that men themselves object
to the assumption that living with a woman means that they
would want to become posthumous fathers. In evidence, we
may note the November 17, 2003 petition to the Israel
Supreme Court jointly filed by the ‘Civil Coalition’ and by a
man who defined himself as ‘belonging to the male sector of
the country’ to revoke the Attorney General’s decision where
the petitioners claimed that the guidelines inflict harm on
men by transforming them into sperm providers even after
their death. They also raise the issue of fatherless orphans,
who will become more common with the implementation of
the guidelines (Yoaz, 2003). Nonetheless, in the view of the
guidelines, lack of explicit consent by the man prior to his
death does not necessarily constitute a bar to permitting the
posthumous retrieval and use of his sperm.
This waiver of the need for explicit consent contradicts
the accepted view that informed consent is an essential
element of freedom of choice. Indeed, some physicians would
be uncomfortable with such a waiver. The urologists Zini and
Mak (2001) argue that posthumous sperm retrieval should
be performed only when the deceased had made a specific
1953
 R.Landau
request in writing or on videotape when he was competent
and of majority age. Ohl (2001) holds that it would be best if
the wishes of the person whose sperm is to be retrieved and
used posthumously were recorded in a legal document.
The option of posthumous conception may also compro-
mise the autonomy of the surviving partner. This may seem
strange, since she is the only one who can set the process
in motion. However, by their very existence, the Attorney
General’s guidelines convey the message that an Israeli
woman should bear her partner’s children, whether he is
alive or dead. The very availability of assisted conception
from the sperm of a deceased partner may create for some
women a moral and psychological obligation to make use of
it. This imagined obligation would infringe on the woman’s
liberty and autonomy (Aziza-Shuster, 1994).
Moreover, whether wife or girlfriend, the surviving partner
may well be subject to intense pressure from her husband’s
parents to utilize his sperm. While a man’s widow or girl-
friend may have alternatives for achieving motherhood, the
only way for the man’s bereft parents to perpetuate their
son’s life, physically, rather than symbolically, is through his
sperm. Although the guidelines explicitly deny the parents’
legal status in the request for sperm use, they cannot prevent
them from pressuring their son’s widow or girlfriend for a
grandchild. Once the sperm have been retrieved and cryopre-
served, there are undoubtedly women who would be suscep-
tible to such pressure.
Nor does the option of posthumous procreation protect the
welfare of the woman much better than it does that of the
child to be born of the procedure. The entire discussion in
the guidelines assumes that authorization for the retrieval and
later use of a man’s sperm would benefit his widow or girl-
friend. It is not at all clear, however, that the option really
contributes to the well-being of a recently bereaved woman.
It exposes her to internal and external pressures to procreate
at a time when she is particularly vulnerable. If she decides
to go ahead with the procedure, she will undergo physically
and psychologically stressful IVF on her own. If the IVF is
successful, she is also likely to raise her deceased partner’s
child on her own, instead of coping with her loss, finding
new meaning in her life, and, in some cases, finding a new
partner and creating a family with him. Bahadur (2002)
observes that a child can be an obstacle to the recovery of
the partner from her loss, especially with a new spouse.
The guidelines seem to be oblivious to these issues. They
disregard the likelihood that young women would be better
off continuing their lives with a new attachment to a living
partner and that older women who had wanted children with
their partners probably had plenty of time to become parents
when their partners were alive. They make no mention of the
difficulties of IVF nor of the fact that it is currently under
scrutiny for its possibly adverse long-term effects (Helmer-
host et al., 2004).
Presumed wishes
According to the guidelines, the main issue in posthumous
sperm use is to determine what the deceased man’s wishes
1954
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article-abstract/19/9/1952/782272
by guest
on 23 April 2018
would have been. In outlining this endeavour, the guidelines
further over-ride his autonomy. The only way to obtain infor-
mation regarding the wishes of the deceased, the guidelines
continue, is through his behaviour prior to his death. Accord-
ingly, indicate the guidelines, the deceased man’s wishes
must be ‘assessed’ case by case. To this end, the guidelines
recommend that the court appoint a social worker to provide
an objective report assessing the deceased man’s wishes.
The ‘presumed wishes’ approach is based on the assump-
tion that, while few men think about the posthumous use of
their sperm, most desire continuity and would be interested
in having their sperm used even after their death, especially
if their partner so wished. As noted above, this assumption is
open to question.
Beyond this, assessing the will of someone who is dead or
incompetent to make a decision about a future situation is
highly anomalous. If it is indeed the deceased’s will that
counts, then he could have taken specific measures towards
expressing his wishes while alive. If he did not, then he may
have thought differently at different times and with changing
circumstances. He may, for example, have had some vague
ideas about becoming a parent some time in the future while
he was young and healthy. But can we extrapolate from this
that he would still have wanted to have children were he ill
or older or that he would have wanted them posthumously?
Moreover, assuming for the moment that we can somehow
answer this question in the affirmative, can we know whether
his ‘presumed wishes’ reflect a desire for his partner to per-
petuate his memory and remain tied to him even after his
death or his consent that she raise his child under any future
circumstances, whatever they may be.
An equally daunting problem is that the deceased man’s
wishes are to be ascertained on the basis of information
obtained primarily from his bereaved partner and parents.
These are interested parties, and there is little, if any, way of
determining the accuracy of their perceptions or veracity of
their statements. If the parents and partner both want posthu-
mous parenthood, they can say that the man did, and there is
no way to prove that he did not. If the parents oppose the
sperm use, they or others may claim that prior to his death he
had told them of having second thoughts about the relation-
ship with his partner. These are not sources of information
that enable the formation of an ‘objective’ assessment of the
deceased’s wishes.
Ethicists have dealt indirectly with the issue of ascertain-
ing a person’s wishes on the basis of testimony by family
members in connection with the question of family members
wishing to take organs for transplants from living but coma-
tose relatives who never gave consent (Associated Press,
2004). They noted that even the closest family members may
have personal and/or conflicting interests, and agreed that
allowing family members to decide to take organs from a liv-
ing but incapacitated relative should be discouraged, and per-
mitted only for patients who are in a persistent vegetative
state. They also averred that immediate family members
should not receive the organs. Although organ donation is
not like sperm retrieval (not that posthumous sperm retrieval
cannot be thought of as being donated), the idea that organs
 Posthumous sperm retrieval in Israeli—an ethical and psychosocial critique
should not be taken from someone’s body without his or her
consent would seem also to apply to the retrieval of sperm.
Imposing the task of ascertaining the deceased’s wishes on
social workers is also extremely problematic. The very idea
of gathering information about a person’s wishes from
sources other than the person himself may be regarded as
both unprofessional and unethical. While it was acceptable in
the distant past for social workers to gather information
about a client or case from various sources, current codes of
social work ethics both in Israel and abroad emphasize auto-
nomy, privacy and confidentiality.
Furthermore, since the person whose wishes are to be
ascertained is dead, it is unclear who the social worker’s cli-
ent is and to whom the worker owes allegiance. The task of
gathering information about a dead person for an unidentified
client from interested parties is more the work of a detective
than that of a professional social worker. The Attorney Gen-
eral’s document explicitly indicates that the guidelines are
the product of discussions among experts in medicine, law
and philosophy. Had some social workers been included in
the panels, they may have noted the practical and ethical
quandaries that the guidelines create for them.
The guidelines also assign to the court-appointed social
worker the task of determining whether the partner request-
ing the sperm use is expressing her genuine, free and true
wish, and to rule out undue influence or pressure, presumably
by the man’s parents. However, it would be very difficult for
a social worker to ascertain whether the woman’s stated
desire for a child by her deceased partner was genuine and
not the product of pressure, especially where she did not
know the woman beforehand.
Suborning medicine and science for the exploitation
of the dead
According to the Attorney General’s guidelines, requests to
retrieve sperm by a wife or partner should be granted without
further process. Promptness is necessary because sperm must
be retrieved within several hours after death if they are to
remain viable. Since the core issue is the use of the posthu-
mously retrieved sperm and this is to be decided by a court,
the Attorney General sees no harm in allowing retrieval of
sperm posthumously. The guidelines treat such retrieval as
simply a medical procedure that does not harm the dead per-
son’s body or impair his dignity.
The idea that posthumous sperm retrieval is a harmless
medical procedure is open to question. UK law forbids carry-
ing out any medical procedure on an incompetent person
unless it can be justified as preventing deterioration or other-
wise deemed in the patient’s best interests (Simpson, 2001).
The dying and dead, in my view, deserve similar consider-
ation. It is clear that sperm retrieval from a dying or dead
man will not prevent deterioration in his health, and it can be
seriously questioned whether it is in his interest. What inter-
ests, after all, do the dead have?
For legal purposes, the guidelines distinguish between
sperm retrieval from a dying man and a dead man. When the
request is to retrieve sperm from a dying or unconscious man,
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article-abstract/19/9/1952/782272
by guest
on 23 April 2018
who is unable to express his wishes, the guidelines stipulate
that the sperm are to be retrieved in accord with the Israel
Patient’s Rights Law (1996), paragraph 15, and to be
regarded as a ‘medical treatment’, defined as the first phase
of fertility treatment. According to the Patient’s Rights Law,
where it is not possible to obtain the patient’s consent or the
consent of his/her legal representative, medical treatment may
be given without consent, unless it is known that the patient
previously had objected to that specific treatment. The fact
that the guidelines do not allow posthumous sperm removal
where the man had explicitly objected to it is consistent with
the law. However, since the purpose of the sperm retrieval is
fertility treatment for the woman, it is hard to see how the
law properly applies to the deceased man. The guidelines
detail the obligations of hospital fertilization units to female
partners regarding the procedures to be applied in the utiliz-
ation of the retrieved sperm. These include informing her of
the nature and ramifications of the fertility treatments, rates
of success and failure, and the emotional and mental difficul-
ties entailed in the procedures. The definition of sperm retrie-
val under these circumstances as a ‘medical treatment’ for the
dying patient can only be viewed as cynical.
When the sperm is to be retrieved posthumously, the
guidelines distinguish between situations where the retrieval
does or does not require an invasive surgical procedure.
Where no surgical procedure is required, the guidelines apply
the rules for sperm retrieval from dying persons. It is enough
that the wife or partner request it and that the man had left
no evidence of opposition. By implication, then, the guide-
lines also define non-surgical posthumous sperm retrieval as
a ‘medical treatment’. The idea of corpses receiving medical
treatment is certainly novel and very incongruous. When sur-
gical intervention is required, the guidelines apply the Ana-
tomy and Pathology Law (1953). This law requires both
the agreement of the partner and the non-objection of any
other family member for post-mortem procedures to be
implemented. In other words, this law allows posthumous
surgery without the deceased’s prior consent.
Be that as it may, these distinctions—between sperm
retrieval from the dying and dead, and between surgical and
non-surgical retrieval—seem besides the point. They are
legal distinctions, which miss the essence of the matter.
Human gametes are not someone’s personal property that can
be given as a gift or legacy (Shalev, 2002).
Indeed, the authorization of posthumous conception turns
sperm into a commodity, a thing. This is suggested by the
case of Diane Blood, an Englishwoman who won her case to
use her husband’s sperm after his death in a European Union
court on the grounds that not permitting her to do so would
deny the free movement of ‘goods and services’. According
to Simpson (2001), who analysed the case, what helped was
the fact that sperm can be stored and transported, bought and
sold, imported and exported, and subject to the laws of
supply and demand.
In addition, the retrieval and use of sperm from deceased
men for the purpose of procreation blurs the boundary
between life and death. Until very recently in human history,
death has been an end, a final retreat from life. Organ
1955
 R.Landau
transplants from the dead started another era, in which organs
of dead people could prolong the lives of sick people who
would otherwise die. Posthumous retrieval of sperm and its
use is entirely different. It uses medicine for non-medical
purposes. It exploits the dead not to prolong an existing life
but to create a new one—an orphan with more than the usual
share of problems awaiting him or her.
Closing remarks
The Attorney General’s guidelines state that enabling indi-
viduals to realize their right to parenthood is in the public
interest. But is it, when this ‘right’ is realized after one of the
parents to be is dead? The legal possibility of posthumous
conception exposes the individuals involved and society as a
whole to a myriad of new, unknown and unpredictable reali-
ties. In particular, we know nothing about the likely psycho-
logical impact of being born from posthumously retrieved
sperm on the resulting offspring.
Nor do we know where the authorization of posthumous
conception may lead. Although the guidelines explicitly indi-
cate that the use of the sperm is to be determined on a case by
case basis in a court of law and that authorization of sperm
retrieval does not constitute authorization for the use of the
retrieved sperm, practice in Israel shows that once a procrea-
tive procedure is allowed, its use will follow. Witness the pub-
lic funding in Israel of unlimited fertility treatments, up to the
birth of two living children, to all women up to 51 years old.
In addition, the use of multiple medical treatments in the
service of procreation in Israel seems to be unlimited. To
take only one example, not long ago the legal advisor of the
Israeli Ministry of Health approved a request for posthumous
sperm use that involved several complex medical procedures.
The request was made by a woman whose husband had died
some time after his sperm was obtained, with his consent,
when he was ill with cancer, with the help of ICSI. The
request was granted even though his consent form did not
mention use of his thawed sperm after his death, and even
though the woman required an oocyte donation to use with
the sperm. It may be mentioned that, as a result of the ferti-
lity treatment, she gave birth to twins (Raziel et al., 2003).
We may well ask how many medical inputs are justified so
as to bring a planned orphan into the world.
While the Attorney General’s guidelines refer only to post-
humous sperm retrieval, one cannot rule out that in the near
future posthumous retrieval of oocytes will be requested by
male partners of deceased women. Considering the legiti-
macy of surrogate parenthood in Israel, this seems a logical
next step.
There is no legislation in Israel, with the exception of the
Surrogacy Law (1996), covering assisted conception, to say
nothing of posthumous conception. In addition, the regu-
lations governing assisted conception are made by the Minis-
try of Health without the participation of the wider public in
an informed debate. Moreover, the long-term effects of the
inevitable changes in the structure of families and the quality
of relationships created by assisted conception are not widely
discussed and have not yet become the subject of research in
the social sciences.
1956
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article-abstract/19/9/1952/782272
by guest
on 23 April 2018
All in all, the Attorney General’s guidelines are incongru-
ent with the recently published report of the President’s
Council on Bioethics (2004). This report maintains that bio-
technologies that touch on human reproduction should take
into consideration the health and well-being of all those
directly affected by the technologies. This means, according
to the Report, not only the individuals or couples seeking
their use, but also and especially the children who may be
born with their aid. The Report also points to the need to pro-
tect human dignity, including the dignity of the human body
and its parts, the dignity of important human relationships
and the humanity of human procreation. In view of the above
analysis, I strongly recommend that the Attorney General’s
guidelines on posthumous sperm retrieval and its use in Israel
be re-examined and re-considered.
References
Anatomy and Pathology Law (1953) (Hebrew).
Associated Press (2004) February 10, 2004. http://msnbcl.msn.com/id/
4232585
Aziza-Shuster E (1994) A child at all cost: posthumous reproduction and the
meaning of parenthood. Hum Reprod 9,2185–2189.
Bahadur G (2002) Death and conception. Hum Reprod 17,2769–2775.
Callahan S (1996) The role of emotion in ethical decision-making. In Howell
JH and Sale WF (eds) Life Choices: A Hastings Center Introduction to
Bioethics. Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC, pp. 24–38.
Cate FH (1994) Posthumous autonomy revisited. Indiana Law J 69,
1067–1073.
Dworkin RB (1994) Emerging paradigms in bioethics: introduction. Indiana
Law J 69,945– 954.
Helmerhost FM, Perquin AM, Donker D and Keirse MJNC (2004) Perinatal
outcome of singletons and twins after assisted conception: a systematic
review of controlled studies. Br Med J 328,261.
Landau R (1999) Planned orphanhood. Soc Sci Med 49,185–196.
Ministry of Justice (2003) Guidelines of the Attorney General of the Govern-
ment, Guideline number 1.2202, 27 October 2003. Ministry of Justice,
Jerusalem (Hebrew).
Murray TH (1996) The worth of a child. University of California Press,
Berkeley, CA.
Ohl DA (2001) Postmortem sperm retrieval is acceptable practice. Contemp
Urol 13,36.
Patients’ Rights Law (1996). Book of Laws 1591 (Hebrew).
President’s Council on Bioethics (2004) Reproduction and responsibility: the
regulation of new biotechnologies. http://www.bioethics.gov/reports/
reproductionandresponsibility/exec_summary.html
Rachels J (1995) Can ethics provide answers? In Howell JH and Sale WF
(eds) Life Choices: A Hastings Center Introduction to Bioethics. George-
town University Press, Washington, DC, pp. 3–23.
Raziel A, Friedler S, Schachter M, Strassburger D, Orna B and Ron-El R
(2003) Birth of healthy twins resulting from donated oocytes and posthu-
mous use of frozen-thawed spermatozoa obtained prior to chemotherapy.
J Assist Reprod Genet 20,382–384.
Shalev C (2002) Posthumous insemination—may he rest in peace [Hebrew].
Med Law 27,96–99.
Simpson B (2001) Making ‘bad’ deaths ‘good’: the kinship consequences of
posthumous conception. J R Anthropol Inst 7,1–18.
Social Workers’ Law (1996) Book of Laws 1574 (Hebrew).
Strong C, Gringrich JR and Kutteh WH (2000) Ethics of sperm retrieval
after death or persistent vegetative state. Hum Reprod 15,739–745.
Surrogacy Law (1996) Book of Laws 1577 (Hebrew).
UN General Assembly (1989) Convention on the Rights of the Child. UN
Document A/Res/44/23. New York.
Yoaz Y (2003) Petition: to revoke Rubinstein’s guidelines concerning sperm
retrieval from dead men. Haaretz 18 November 2003.
Zini A and Mak V (2001) Postmortem sperm retrieval is not a urologist’s
duty. Contemp Urol 13,36.
Submitted on April 13, 2004; accepted on May 18, 2004