A British journalist, author and broadcaster, Jenny Kleeman wrote an article, “The promise of revival”, in the weekend magazine of FT. It discusses about the increased use of Postmortem Sperm Retrieval (PMSR) in Israel by parents who have lost their sons in the ongoing Gaza war, hoping to create grandchildren. The article is quite revealing; it shows how communities facing existential threat innovate to redefine their survival and continuity on Earth.

As is well known, Israel was founded with the premise of providing a homeland for the Jewish people, many of whom had survived the Holocaust. Since the time of the Book of Genesis, Jews have been told that it is their duty to “be fruitful and multiply”. Over it, since the establishment of Israel, it has faced ongoing challenges from its neighbours and war has, in many ways, become a recurring feature of its existence. As a result, the death of young soldiers in the armed forces has become a pervasive phenomenon. The result is: Bereaved families, orphaned children, and children who have never known their fathers.

Amidst such a threatening scenario, it is no wonder, today, Israel has the highest number of IVF cycles per capita in the world, duly aided by its advanced medical techniques. Perhaps, it is the only country in the world that fully covers the cost of IVF treatment up to the birth of two babies. In the same vein, the State is even covering the cost of PMSR, sperm storage, IVF, parental care and delivery – all in the anxiety of maintaining the Jewish race.

PMSR is relatively a simple medical procedure performed by a surgeon, usually an urologist. It involves opening the testis and taking a biopsy. As these are usually fertile men, a small biopsy is said to be enough to isolate sperm cells from the collected tissue. Then checking their motility and other signs of viability under a microscope, doctors pick up the promising sperms and freeze them for future use in assisted reproductive technology. As the sperm can remain alive for days after death, doctors usually freeze sperm collected up to 80 hours after death that are found viable. Nonetheless, the sooner the sperm is retrieved, the more likely it is to lead to successful conception.

It was Dr Cappy Rothman who, for the first time in the year 1980, successfully retrieved sperm from a 32-year-old dead person in Los Angeles and frozen it at the request of the deceased’s father. This was of course never used. Later it is reported that he performed PMSR 180 times but preserved sperm was used hardly in 10 cases for conception. Those PMSRs were said to have been carried out more to enable people to pass “through the grieving period”. 

Today PMSR, because of the ethical and legal issues involved, is banned in Germany, Sweden, France, Hungary and Slovenia. It is however legal subject to certain conditions in the UK, Canada, Netherlands, Greece, Estonia, Japan and the Czech Republic. There is no legislation covering PMSR in the US but it has become increasingly acceptable. Conceiving children from the dead partner’s sperm is however not that remarkable around the world.

But asking for grandchildren in the PSMR way has today become an almost exclusively Israeli phenomenon. It is the grieving parents, who, in their anxiety to have something to hold on to, are opting for PSMR route to at least have a grandchild of their own. Maybe, with the motto, “Why not cause happiness for those who lost their precious sons in war?” the State has removed restrictions on permissions required for retrieving sperm from the dead: As a result, today, in addition to partners, even parents of the dead can request a retrieval.

Today, Israel maintains a sperm bank at a Tel Aviv’s Medical Center, in which are stored more than 50000 sperm samples in numbered vails, frozen at -1960C. It contains sperm collected from young cancer patients well before the commencement of chemotherapy and from trans people before their gender reassignment for future use. It also contains the sperm collected from the bodies of soldiers who were killed during or after the recent Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. Every care is taken to maintain the right temperature all the times by constant monitoring by the staff, who believe that what they are caring for is priceless.

The medical profession of Israel is indeed offering a scope not only for a kind of biological continuity for the families who lost their precious sons/ life partners in the war but also offering a solace to the grieving families employing sophisticated medical procedures. Despite all these technological advancements and the outcomes thereof, one cannot deny the fact that such fathering a child by a dead soldier is no replacement to the lost son/partner.

That aside, immaterial of the fact of conceiving children either during or after their father’s death, Israel is set to have a lot of new orphans who have never seen their father. As a social activist commented, “A whole generation is going to be dealing with such difficult beginnings”.

But the tragic irony of the ongoing conflict is that not only do Israelis face a painful and uncertain future, but Palestinians also share the same fate. Particularly, people of Gaza under the Hamas rule may face a far more dire situation, for the blockade, ongoing confrontations and limited international aid leave many without access to even basic services. Contrarily, Israel, despite the conflict can provide its citizens substantial medical and financial assistance.

These tragic events posit a battery of questions:

• Why this mad killing of each other?
• Which religion could justify such orphaning of children?
• What for this mutual destruction?
• Why do so many countries aid this devastation to happen?
• …What is the Goal of all this?
• What disastrous illusion whirling one race after another, all equally fanatical, devouring finally themselves?

O Nations! "Awake and Will".