The Health Promotion Administration yesterday said that it might consider relaxing the Artificial Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) following Wednesday’s news that a 62-year-old woman gave birth to a boy late last month.
The woman, surnamed Wu (吳), decided to have the baby after she retired, making her the oldest woman to give birth in Taiwan.
However, many questioned how Wu, who has already passed menopause, could qualify for artificial insemination, given that the law stipulates only couples in which one partner is diagnosed with infertility or a dangerous hereditary disease are entitled to the treatment.
Whether post-menopausal women should be viewed as infertile has become a topic of debate.
“As the case has triggered concerns that it might have violated the law, we will study the legality of the case and review the law to see whether it is too strict,” agency Director-General Wang Ying-wei (王英偉) said.
“With advances in technology, there are increasing numbers of older mothers,” Wang said. “A review is needed to see whether the law should be amended to catch up with the changing times.”
“Although many contentious issues related to child-rearing and ethical issues could arise when older mothers give birth, there are also voices supporting them in society,” Wang said. “The case of this 62-year-old woman provides an opportunity to review existing laws governing artificial reproduction.”
After consulting experts in the field, the agency would call a meeting to discuss whether rules should be relaxed, Wang said, adding that the discussions would focus on how to best protect the interests of newborns.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching