A public committee appointed by the Health Ministry issued historic recommendations on Sunday to allow gay men to employ the services of surrogate mothers and for women to receive sperm donations from non-anonymous donors. The committee was formed to explore issues of fertility and birth policy. It has spent the last year and a half discussing sensitive and unprecedented issues in the realm of fertility technology. Prof. Shlomo Mor Yosef, former director of Hadassah Hospital and current CEO of the National Insurance Institute, is head of the committee made up of experts in the fields of medicine, ethics, law, social work, genetics, psychology and others. The committee's recommendations still require approval by the Health Ministry as well as various legislative procedures before implementation. With respect to surrogates for single men, the committee said that it would allow it if the motivation for having a child is purely altruistic, without payment to the surrogate. Despite objections raised by a third of the committee members, and a request that all surrogate processes be conducted without payment only and with altruistic motivation to prevent trade of the female body, and to prevent the expansion of women serving as surrogates in order to make a living, the committee decided to allow two different tracks for surrogates. One track is for couples and single women who cannot maintain their pregnancies to pay a surrogate; the other track would be an altruistic one for single parents. The committee stipulated that their recommendation was made "in order to prevent the exploitation of women who act as surrogates, in light of the growing number of people who seek the option of a surrogate." The committee also recommended that the state recognize foreign clinics that perform surrogate procedures to ensure that they fulfill Israeli medical standards. Israeli doctors will be forbidden from cooperating with unrecognized clinics. The committee was originally formed in 2010 following technological advances in the fertility field and a number of sensitive law suits dealing with the issue. One of the issues dealt with an in vitro fertilization process for a woman, from the sperm of her lifelong friend who was a married man. The committee adopted a permissive approach to the subject: allowing fertilization for women from a married man or a married woman from a single man, without a legal obligation to notify the spouse or legal partner. Another dramatic recommendation dealt with non-anonymous sperm donation: The committee recommends allowing an additional track for donating sperm, alongside anonymous donation, in which the child, upon reaching age 18, can request details of the sperm donor's identity. Other recommendations stem from children's rights, which stipulate that the in vitro fertilization processes will be forbidden if one of the partners involved has been accused of a violent or pedophilic crime or if the couple has other children who have been removed from their custody. The committee agreed, for the first time in Israel, to allow fertilized egg donations for women who require both an egg and the sperm in order to conceive. The committee also defined parameters for couples in which one member has died, such that the surviving member can use either the sperm or egg of their deceased partner to bring a child into the world posthumously, regardless of whether the partner left behind instructions on the subject. An official in the Health Ministry said that, "Deputy Health Minister Rabbi Yakov Litzman will not promote these recommendations, but he will also not delay them in light of the fundamental contradiction between the recommendations and his personal way of life. The decision will be made by professionals who are officials in the ministry."