The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced recently that next year it will introduce a policy involving subsidizing assisted reproduction for infertile couples to increase Taiwan’s fertility rate.
Giving subsidies to economically disadvantaged, infertile couples to help them have children is a great idea. However, the main reason behind the declining birth rate is not infertility, but rather that potential parents cannot afford to raise children.
While assisted reproductive technology has become increasingly advanced in Taiwan over the past decade, the average live birth rate per embryo transfer cycle has remained at a mere 27 percent, which means that on average, an infertile couple will have to go through three or four rounds of therapy before the process is successful.
Therefore, the government has drawn up a three-year budget of NT$940 million (US$31.4 million) for artificial reproduction subsidies, of which almost NT$670 million will be spent on failed therapies, which is hardly cost-effective.
Furthermore, the ministry has forecast that 4,000 children will be born three years after the policy is implemented and that for each child born, an average of NT$235,000 will have been paid out in subsidies.
Given the government’s substantial debts and that such debt is passed on from one generation to the next, it seems somewhat inappropriate and unreasonable of the government to spend tax revenue in this way.
The ministry believes that the government’s seven major policies aimed at tackling the declining birth rate have been effective enough to create a positive environment in which people can rear children and all that is required now is for people to start having babies.
Yet the current social welfare system only partially subsidizes child care and medical care, while the government has no clear plans for subsidizing the daily necessities for raising children that need to be covered by parents, such as clothing, food and living expenses.
Thus, this is a policy that looks good on paper, but that provides no real benefits. The result will be that those who cannot afford to have children are less likely to apply for the subsidies, while those who are better off and can afford to raise children will be the only ones with the means to apply each year, which will cause a negative distribution of government funding.
In addition, because of the economic incentives, doctors might be inclined to encourage younger couples to try artificial reproduction — citing the higher success rates in younger couples — discouraging the natural process of pregnancy in favor of medical procedures, which expose both mother and child to the risks involved in assisted reproduction.
Policies aimed at assisting the economically disadvantaged have always been of high importance, but the government’s ideas about the nature of artificial reproduction and child rearing are impractical.
Without carrying out a complete cost-effectiveness analysis or a social impact assessment of these policies and putting them into practice before the next presidential election, the only thing to be certain of is that within the next three years, 74 medical centers for assisted reproduction will gladly take both the NT$940 million that the government will give them and all the business opportunities this might create.
Huang Sue-ying and Tsai Wan-fen are president and secretary-general respectively of Taiwan Women’s Link.
Translated by Drew Cameron
A Chinese diplomat’s violent threat against Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi following her remarks on defending Taiwan marks a dangerous escalation in East Asian tensions, revealing Beijing’s growing intolerance for dissent and the fragility of regional diplomacy. Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) on Saturday posted a chilling message on X: “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off,” in reference to Takaichi’s remark to Japanese lawmakers that an attack on Taiwan could threaten Japan’s survival. The post, which was later deleted, was not an isolated outburst. Xue has also amplified other incendiary messages, including one suggesting
Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) on Saturday last week shared a news article on social media about Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on Taiwan, adding that “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off.” The previous day in the Japanese House of Representatives, Takaichi said that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could constitute “a situation threatening Japan’s survival,” a reference to a legal legal term introduced in 2015 that allows the prime minister to deploy the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The violent nature of Xue’s comments is notable in that it came from a diplomat,
Before 1945, the most widely spoken language in Taiwan was Tai-gi (also known as Taiwanese, Taiwanese Hokkien or Hoklo). However, due to almost a century of language repression policies, many Taiwanese believe that Tai-gi is at risk of disappearing. To understand this crisis, I interviewed academics and activists about Taiwan’s history of language repression, the major challenges of revitalizing Tai-gi and their policy recommendations. Although Taiwanese were pressured to speak Japanese when Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1895, most managed to keep their heritage languages alive in their homes. However, starting in 1949, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) enacted martial law
“Si ambulat loquitur tetrissitatque sicut anas, anas est” is, in customary international law, the three-part test of anatine ambulation, articulation and tetrissitation. And it is essential to Taiwan’s existence. Apocryphally, it can be traced as far back as Suetonius (蘇埃托尼烏斯) in late first-century Rome. Alas, Suetonius was only talking about ducks (anas). But this self-evident principle was codified as a four-part test at the Montevideo Convention in 1934, to which the United States is a party. Article One: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government;
RSS