Women’s rights groups on Wednesday urged the government to address access to sperm and egg donation for single women and lesbian couples’ separately from surrogacy when amending the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法).
Taiwan Women’s Link director Huang Shu-ing (黃淑英) said her organization, along with 26 other groups in the fields of women’s rights, gender, labor and medicine, were calling on the government to give single women and lesbian couples access to assisted reproduction services that are already available to heterosexual couples.
As surrogacy is far more complicated than simply giving single women and lesbian couples access to sperm and egg donation, discussing both issues together would delay the amendment, Huang said.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
A joint statement issued by the 27 groups on Tuesday also called for protecting single women and lesbian couples’ right to access sperm and egg donation services.
At the time of its introduction in 2008, the act was aimed at helping heterosexual couples with fertility problems, the statement said.
However, Taiwanese society has changed a lot over the past decade, so the regulations should not prevent other groups from accessing services already available to heterosexual couples, it said.
While surrogacy — which is not legal in Taiwan — is often bundled with sperm and egg donation when discussing amendments to the act, the two are fundamentally different issues, the statement said.
It added that discussions on whether to legalize surrogacy relate to the rights and lives of surrogate mothers, intended parents and the children, and how to build parent-child relationships.
Although surrogacy is also part of assisted reproductive rights, the debates surrounding the issue are not related to the service itself, but ethical and moral ones, the groups said.
In comparison, amending the act to give single women and lesbian couples access to sperm and egg donation is significantly less complicated and controversial, the groups said.
If the government keeps combining the two issues, the amendment’s passing will be delayed, the statement said.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare is to hold the first public hearing regarding amendments to the act on Tuesday next week.
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