As a medical social worker at Israel\u2019s Kaplan Hospital, Prof. Shir\u00a0Daphna-Tekoah is no stranger to trauma. <\/p>\n
But when she was drafted in to work on October 7, the day Hamas attacked Israeli farms, villages and a music festival, the scale of the disaster quickly became apparent. <\/p>\n
As head of the hospital\u2019s rape crisis center, she was called in as reports surfaced of sexual assaults. But it was soon all hands on deck as the emergency room filled up with the injured. <\/p>\n
\u201cI saw the horror on their faces,\u201d Daphna-Tekoah said. \u201cI saw in their eyes that they\u2019d seen something unbelievable.\u201d <\/strong> <\/p>\n Worse followed. \u201cThen came the dead bodies of youngsters in their party clothes,\u201d she said. \u201cThey were no more than 23, 24, my own children\u2019s age.\u201d <\/p>\n It was Daphna-Tekoah\u2019s responsibility to support the families saying goodbye to their murdered loved ones. Of one family, she said: \u201cI asked if they would like to thank their child or ask for forgiveness for anything. <\/p>\n \u201cThe mother said: \u2018I\u2019m so sorry I let you go to the party and that I didn\u2019t protect you.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n Then, Daphna-Tekoah posed another question. \u201cI asked \u2018Would you like me to find out about sperm preservation?\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t even explain what I saw,\u201d said Daphna-Tekoah, who knew little about the process other than the need <\/strong>to act fast. <\/p>\n \u201cBefore, there was only agony and darkness in the mother\u2019s eyes and suddenly there was a flicker of light and hope.\u201d <\/p>\n Daphna-Tekoah immediately approached hospital management, and just a few <\/strong>hours later they had the legal sign-off <\/strong>needed. By the following morning, the sperm of several victims from the Nova festival had been retrieved. <\/p>\n Now, more than seven weeks later, Israeli hospitals have been inundated with requests to cryogenically freeze the sperm of those killed in the conflict, hospital officials say. <\/p>\n Posthumous sperm retrieval (PSR) was previously open to partners \u2013 provided other relatives did not object \u2013 but parents of the deceased had to apply for legal permission. <\/p>\n But the Ministry of Health has recently slashed the red tape. In a statement on its website, it says hospitals have been instructed, during the war, to approve requests for PSR \u201cfrom the deceased\u2019s parents, without referring them to a family court.\u201d <\/p>\n Sperm lives on briefly after death, which is why it\u2019s possible for doctors \u2013 usually a fertility or urology specialist \u2013 to retrieve it from testicular tissue. Any live sperm cells found are transferred and frozen in liquid nitrogen. <\/p>\n Dr. Noga Fuchs Weizman, medical director of the sperm bank and male infertility unit at Tel Aviv\u2019s Ichilov Hospital, said there have been many requests from bereaved families. <\/p>\n According to Dr. Shimi Barda, laboratory director of the unit, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) offer families the option when informing them of their loss. \u201cThey proactively suggest it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Soon after the October 7 attacks, the case of Israeli singer Shaylee Atary, whose husband was killed trying to protect their baby in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, made headlines. <\/strong> <\/p>\n According to Israel\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Atary \u201cdid everything in her power to retrieve his sperm,\u201d in the hope of expanding their family in the future. She was unsuccessful, but her experience raised awareness. <\/p>\n The retrieval initiative is overseen by the Ministry of Health, which then splits cases between four hospitals. <\/p>\n Detecting live sperm is most likely in the first 24 hours after death, so timing is crucial, said Barda. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve limited the timeframe to 72 hours; however, the literature and our own experience suggests 44 to 45 hours is the maximum.\u201d <\/p>\n The manner of death is also important. <\/p>\n \u201cIt depends on the state of the body, how it was kept and how severe the injuries were,\u201d said Barda. <\/p>\n The hospital speaks directly to families, said Fuchs Weizman. \u201cWe tell them what we managed to freeze\u2026 and briefly about the process later, if they choose to use it.\u201d <\/p>\n Barda added: \u201cIt\u2019s very emotional, very hard, but we give them some hope.\u201d <\/p>\n Irit Oren Gunders is the founder of Or Lamishpachot (Light to the Families), a non-profit organization supporting families of fallen soldiers. She has long campaigned for parents to have access to PSR. <\/p>\n Irit Rosenblum, a pioneering lawyer and founder of New Family, which advocates for family rights, is also working with bereaved parents. <\/p>\n Rosenblum made legal history in 2007 with the case of a woman whose son was killed in Gaza. This client became the first parent in Israel and one of the first in the world to win the right to have her son\u2019s sperm extracted, she said. But it took over a decade for her to become a grandmother. <\/p>\n Rosenblum says she has been instrumental in the birth of more than 100 children. She has long campaigned for biological wills, which provide unequivocal guidance after death. Since the Hamas attacks, she has made it quick and easy to complete a biological will online. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not a religious person but Israeli society is very family oriented and continuity is a must,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n \u201cThe mourner has lost the will to live \u2013 the only way to restore meaning to their lives is through the continuity of the person they lost. Not allowing it, even though we have the technology, is not moral.\u201d <\/p>\n Yulia and Vlad Poznianski, whose son Baruch died of cancer aged 25, are among those helped by Rosenblum. <\/p>\n Fifteen years on, Yulia still finds it difficult to talk about Baruch\u2019s death. Instead, she focuses on the future and her granddaughter, Shira, who\u2019s just turned 8. <\/p>\n \u201cWe made new life,\u201d said Yulia, of their collaboration with Liat Malka, a single woman who had Shira using their son\u2019s sperm. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re very grateful to her but she\u2019s also grateful to us,\u201d said Yulia of Malka, explaining that they are very active grandparents. <\/p>\n Yulia describes Shira as a \u201cbrilliant\u201d child whose resemblance to her father is \u201cunbelievable.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s a big girl and she understands. She\u2019s not the first and won\u2019t be the last child whose father isn\u2019t alive \u2013 especially now,\u201d said Yulia. <\/p>\n Soldiers sent into conflict must be told about their options, said Yulia. \u201cThey have to know that they can leave their parents or wife their biological will.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThe combination of high-tech medicine and a strong cultural, religious and existentialist bent for reproduction results in the highest number of IVF clinics per capita and the highest number of IVF cycles for women in the world.\u201d <\/p>\n He said traditional ethical perspectives have been upended by the loss of life \u2013 especially among the young \u2013 since October 7. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is a new twist and Israel is pushing the envelope here,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have the science and know-how on the one hand and on the second hand we have the impetus, which is religion, culture and history.\u201d <\/p>\n Nevertheless, ethical questions must be considered, he said. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen you face such a horrendous loss you do anything that is some sort of panacea for your endless grief and pain \u2013 but this is not the way we make policy.\u201d <\/p>\n He believes bereaved parents should be allowed to access PSR, \u201cbut then you halt.\u201d <\/strong> <\/p>\n With \u201czero urgency,\u201d he said, \u201cwe have time to sit and debate and think about the implications of planned orphanhood, motivated by the request of the deceased\u2019s parents.\u201d <\/p>\n He added: \u201cPlanned orphanhood in the sense that this child was born out of a tragedy as a living memorial of the deceased soldier.\u201d <\/p>\n But for Daphna-Tekoah, the answer is clear in the wake of the Hamas attack. <\/p>\n \u201cIf, as a country, we encourage people to donate organs after death, why aren\u2019t we giving people the right to donate sperm? We\u2019re not living in the Middle Ages and the technology is here. It\u2019s their human right,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was a catastrophe and we owe it to them.\u201d <\/p>\n This story has been updated.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n As a medical social worker at Israel\u2019s Kaplan Hospital, Prof. Shir\u00a0Daphna-Tekoah is no stranger to trauma. But when she was drafted in to work on October 7, the day Hamas attacked Israeli farms, villages and a music festival, the scale of the disaster quickly became apparent. As head of the hospital\u2019s rape crisis center, she <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12337,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12336","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} \u2018It\u2019s a long process\u2019<\/h2>\n
Israel \u2018pushing the envelope\u2019<\/h2>\n