The Jerusalem District Court ruled on Tuesday that if a married man wishes to participate in in-vitro fertilization with a woman who is not his wife, his wife need not be informed.
Judge Yehonatan Adiel thus nullified a Health Ministry requirement that the wife be informed of the procedure beforehand and allowed to express her opinion.
The Health Minister has no authority to institute the above requirement, the judge ruled, and it is thus null and void. So reported NFC correspondent Ruthy Avraham.
The ruling was made in the case of a man who is in the process of getting divorced, and whose mistress is having trouble conceiving. When the two applied for in-vitro fertizilation, they were informed of Health Ministry guidelines requiring three conditions for the procedure: Court approval, paternal acknowledgement, and that the wife be enabled to have her say on the matter.
In the case at hand, the husband claimed that informing his wife of his reproductive plans is "liable to complicate the divorce process."
Judge Adiel ruled in favor of the husband. "The fact that a couple requires medical help in order to bring a child into the world," the ruling reads, "does not give the man's wife a substantial right to prevent the fertilization - a right that she does not have in normal circumstances where the fertilization would take place naturally without medical help."
Adultery and the Law
The above argument is predicated on the fact that there is no overt prohibition in civil Israeli law against adultery. A Rabbinic Court pleader confirmed to IsraelNationalNews that though an adulterer may be liable to certain sanctions, the civil law does not relate to adultery - as it does not relate to other ethical prohibitions, such as lying - and as such, adultery cannot be said to be illegal.
The judge agreed that for a man to have two family cells in parallel could hurt the first family economically and in other ways, but "this is not sufficient to give the wife a legal right to prevent ties between her husband and the woman, including child-bearing."
Judge Adiel further explained that the Health Minister has no authority to enact regulations forbidding in-vitro fertilization for "social reasons," but rather only for medical reasons. The Minister's authority in this realm extends only to such procedures subsidized by the government or by public health funds, the judge ruled.