The Department of Health plans to ban surrogate motherhood and has recently completed a bill governing artificial fertilization and births, Chinese-language media reported yesterday.
The bill is now on its way to the Legislative Yuan for review.
Chen Chao-tzu (陳昭姿), chief pharmacologist and pro-surrogate motherhood activist at the Koo Foundation Sun Yat-sen Cancer Center (和信醫院), slammed the department over the proposed ban, according to the report.
Chen also predicted that it would be difficult for the bill to pass, saying that several dozen legislators have already shown support for surrogate motherhood.
Chen said the ban is unfair to several thousand women in the country who are fertile but unable to bear children because of various health problems.
The bill also imposes age limits on people who can participate in artificial fertilization -- 60 for men and 50 for women.
The age limits are aimed at barring older people from producing test-tube babies, which can result in a variety of health problems in the child including pregnancy toxemia and chromosome abnormalities.
The department also plans to formulate bylaws regulating reimbursements for sperm and ovum donors.
The age limits have drawn criticism.
Li Maosheng (
Setting age limits in the law may deprive them of their right to have children, Li said.
The report also quoted Chang Ming-yang (
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
RSS