- Founder and CEOWinner of the 2012 Stevie Awards for Entrepreneur of the Year!Winner of the 2011 Legal Marketing Association Award!Winner of the 2010 OGUNTE Women's Leadership Award!Winner of the 2009 InnovAction Prize!
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Biological Wills™
Since Irit Rosenblum’s proposal to establish a sperm bank for Israel Defense Forces in 2001 through the delivery of the world’s first and only child to be born of posthumous maternity by Biological Will™ in the Nissim Ayash case, The Biological Will™ initiative broke the boundaries of nature to make this new paradigm a reality.
Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) are constantly sophisticating, opening up infinite reproductive possibilities and parenting constellations. Irit Rosenblum invented The Biological Will™ as a solution to the quandaries presented by ART. She argues that anonymous gamete donations rob children of their genetic record, complete family tree, and the love of an extended family. These beliefs inspired her to establish the world’s first and only Biological Will™ Bank. As the world’s only entity drafting and storing Biological Wills™, New Family helps the terminally ill, bereaved families, soldiers, and widow/ers create their biological legacy.
The Biological Will™ is an innovative form of legal insurance for genetic continuity. It is a legal testament that documents the intended use or disposal of any individual’s sperm, ova or embryos in case of death, incapacitation or infertility. Biological Wills™ offer singles and same-sex couples an alternative to anonymous sperm or egg donations by receiving sperm or ova from a known donor. All stakeholders benefit: the individual that fathers/mothers children, the designated parent, the donor’s family, who continue their line and the child, who gets a genetic record, a complete family tree, and an extended family.
New Family litigated groundbreaking cases in which the deceased’s parents won the right to carry out their son’s Biological Will™ by choosing a single woman to conceive with their son’s sperm and raise the child as her own. The world’s first case of attempted posthumous reproduction with a partner unknown to the donor is Keivan Cohen in Israel. In 2007, Cohen’s parents won the right to designate a woman to conceive with the sperm that was extracted after his death in 2002, after proving in court that he wished to father children. The case was unique, both because Cohen had not left his wish in writing, and because he did not know the woman that will raise his child. The Cohen case paved the way for a string of legal precedents in Israel. In 2009, Family Court approved the verbal Biological Will™ of Idan Snir, and empowered his parents to donate his sperm to a single woman who wishes to raise a child from a known sperm donor. In 2011, an Israeli court approved a written Biological Will™ in which Baruch Posniansky empowered his parents to choose a single woman who wishes to conceive with his sperm. These cases affirmed the men’s right to father children after death independent of a female partner, legally validated the Biological Will™ and recognized its benefits for all stakeholders.