The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday said that it would propose an amendment to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) that would allow single women, unmarried couples and lesbian couples to access assisted reproductive procedures, while adding that the government should subsidize women who choose to have their eggs frozen.
“The act has limited access to assisted reproductive procedures to married heterosexual couples, but it should apply to unmarried couples, single women and lesbian couples as well. The procedures are technically feasible and have a higher success rate, and they would help raise the nation’s declining birthrate in the short term,” said KMT legislator-elect Chen Ching-hui (陳菁徽), who is also a fertility specialist.
“We hope the different political parties would pass the part of the amendment that they agree on and host public hearings on some of the controversial issues, such as whether surrogacy should be allowed in Taiwan,” she said.
Photo: Shih Hsiao-kuang, Taipei Times
On average, a married woman in Taiwan has about 1.5 children, Chen said, adding that the government should offer public daycare facilities and other incentives for them to have more.
The birthrate among unmarried women remains low, which in turn lowers the nation’s overall birthrate, she said.
Studies have also shown that the average age of a woman first getting married is 31, compared with 27 two decades ago, she said, adding that 43 percent of women in Taiwan aged 25 to 40 are not married.
Only 25 percent of the women would get married if they become pregnant, down from about 50 percent six to seven years ago, studies show.
“The government should allow unmarried women to access oocyte cryopreservation, so that they maintain the choice for childbirth when they are in their 40s,” Chen said.
Critics said that the subsidies for oocyte cryopreservation would see women further postpone childbirth.
“What we are seeing now is that many married couples have already chosen not to have children, without government subsidies for oocyte cryopreservation,” Chen said.
“We are also seeing increasingly more women choosing to devote the peak time of their child-bearing years to their careers and education, which is an irreversible global trend,” she said.
Women in their 40s have a 5 percent chance of getting pregnant through natural conception, while the chance would be increased to 20 percent through in vitro fertilization, she said.
The pregnancy rate for women who undergo oocyte cryopreservation could reach 60 to 70 percent, she said, adding that they could have one or multiple children at a time.
Chen said there exists an enormous information gap between those who are for and those who are against surrogacy, judging from comments on social media.
An online poll she created showed 45 percent of respondents supported the policy if it has clear regulations, while 40 percent said they opposed it, Chen said.
“At the first stage, we would ensure that the amendment of the act covers all women who want to have children through assisted reproductive procedures. We will continue to have dialogue with the public over controversial issues and hopefully reach a consensus,” she said.
Environmental groups yesterday filed an appeal with the Executive Yuan, seeking to revoke the environmental impact assessment (EIA) conditionally approved in February for the Hsieh-ho Power Plant’s planned fourth liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving station off the coast of Keelung. The appeal was filed jointly by the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group, the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association and the Keelung City Taiwan Head Cultural Association, which together held a news conference outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei. Explaining the reasons for the appeal, Wang Hsing-chih (王醒之) of the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group said that the EIA failed to address
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
RSS