Rabbi David Ohayon, Chief Rabbi of the Alfei Menashe Council and Deputy Chief Rabbi of the city of Pardes Hanna, has demanded that the Health Ministry enact policies regarding children who do not know who their parents are.
"This situation, in which Israel permits anonymous sperm donations, deals a very severe blow to the basic right of every child to know who his parents are," Rabbi Ohayon wrote. "This undermines the basis of the foundation of the family unit, and it has led to a situation in which hundreds of brothers and sisters, children of the same father, are at real risk of incestuous marriages."
Presenting his own recommendation to the Health Ministry, Rabbi Ohayon continued: "All you need to do is to enact a policy under which a child's right to know and be familiar with his parents is stronger than the right to parenthood. You must instruct the professional echelons to act accordingly."
He stressed, "The legal justification already exists - all that is left is to put it into action, instead of continuing the attempts to ignore it by progressive parties in the system who are advancing a destructive agenda at the expense of children's welfare."
Last year, the Supreme Court overturned a previous decision and ordered that genetic tests be performed to determine if a couple undergoing fertility treatments were the genetic parents of a child born following an IVF mixup. Justifying its decision, the Supreme Court explained that there was a real chance that the couple were the child's genetic parents, and the child deserved to know where she came from.
The genetic parents are now fighting the child's legal birth parents for custody of her - despite the fact that the birth mother underwent surgery while pregnant that could have cost the birth mother her own life.