The birth parents of Sophia, who was born following a genetic mixup in 2022, have appealed to the District Court following a lower court's decision to transfer their daughter to her genetic parents, Haaretz reported.
The appeal follows a Sunday ruling by the Rishon Lezion Family Court that Sophia's genetic parents are better capable of communicating her life story to her than her birth parents are, and that she should be transferred to their care.
In their ruling, the Family Court ordered that Sophia be immediately registered as her genetic parents' child, stripping her birth parents of their status as her natural parents and guardians. The process of transferring Sophia from her birth parents' care to that of her genetic parents is expected to take several weeks to several months; it is not clear why, given her complex medical conditions the change in registration was ordered to take place immediately.
In their appeal, the birth parents requested to delay the change in order to prevent immediate implementation of the order.
All other details of the appeal are under gag order.
The Family Court judge, Judge Oved Elias, made the ruling on his own, choosing to prefer the recommendation of a private psychologist over the recommendation of social workers from the Welfare Ministry's Department of Child Services.
It is not clear why the psychologist, Dr. Daniel Gottlieb, was hired after the Department had issued its recommendation; it is also unclear why the Department, which wrote its statement when Sophia was 15 months old, was not asked to provide an updated assessment more recently. Dr. Gottlieb assessed Sophia when she was approximately two years old.
The appeal will now be examined by a panel of three District Court judges.