Surrogacy laws could help Taiwanese who are unable to conceive and remove the need for them to seek controversial international surrogacy, fertility experts said on Tuesday.
Progress on a draft surrogacy bill — which passed a first reading in May last year — has been stalled, despite widespread support, as there remain many technical and legal problems to solve, Health Promotion Administration (HPA) Maternal and Child Health Division Director Lin Yi-ching (林宜靜) said.
Surrogacy has been on the agenda at the legislature for years, and the HPA has held seven meetings on the issue in the past six months alone, but no real progress has been made, she said.
“The HPA has conducted three surveys, and there has consistently been support for surrogacy from 80 percent of respondents,” she said.
However, issues such as how to ensure that the rights of the child and biological mother are protected remain to be worked out, Lin said.
“Having a surrogacy law would solve some disputes and help those unable to conceive, but there are still some rights issues to consider,” Taiwan Society for Reproductive Medicine director Lee Mao-sheng (李茂盛) said.
One concern is that it would commodify wombs, he said, adding that some experts are also concerned that wealthy couples would exploit low-income women.
“There have also been cases of surrogates using extortion to make excessive demands of adoptive parents,” he said. “In other cases, surrogates have developed feelings for the child, and have gone into hiding to avoid handing the child over.”
In other cases, children of surrogates were born with birth defects and were abandoned by their adoptive parents, he said.
Meanwhile, local media reported on the problems faced by an unmarried man identified as A-Chiang (阿強), who had paid an intermediary couple to help him adopt twin boys through a surrogate in the Ukraine.
The report said that A-Chiang paid the couple — a man surnamed Liu (劉) and a woman surnamed Tsai (蔡) — NT$2.3 million (US$81,255) and traveled to Kiev with the couple to meet the surrogate and bring the children to Taiwan.
However, after arriving in Kiev, the couple refused to arrange for him to meet the surrogate and the children, and demanded more money, saying that they would have the electricity to the surrogate’s apartment cut if he did not pay.
Helped by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chang Liao Wan-chien (張廖萬堅), A-Chiang contacted Ukrainian authorities and was able to bring the children to Taiwan in November last year, the report said.
Additional reporting by Lu Yi-hsuan
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
Two Taiwanese prosecutors were questioned by Chinese security personnel at their hotel during a trip to China’s Henan Province this month, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. The officers had personal information on the prosecutors, including “when they were assigned to their posts, their work locations and job titles,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said. On top of asking about their agencies and positions, the officers also questioned the prosecutors about the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement, a pact that serves as the framework for Taiwan-China cooperation on combating crime and providing judicial assistance, Liang
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS