Amid years-long discussion in Taiwan about amending the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法), which has not been updated since its inception about 20 years ago, activists and experts have been urging the government to grant single women and lesbian couples access to reproductive technology.
However, these calls have been met with resistance from certain pockets of society, with some questioning the impact of a potential increase in “single-parent families,” and others raising concerns about the health of babies born through artificial reproduction.
These debates came amid two public hearings earlier this year, followed by a Ministry of Health and Welfare announcement last month that it plans to amend the act to legalize surrogacy, with stringent conditions.
Photo: CNA
The ministry is also considering including single women and same-sex couples in the legislation, the draft amendments showed.
The proposal would be open for public feedback until July 13, with the aim of it undergoing Cabinet review by the end of the year. After that, all eyes would be on whether, and if so how far, the government would go in amending the act.
“Making single women eligible under the act would be great for those who haven’t found a partner yet and are worried about declining fertility as they age,” said Sunny Wang, who froze her eggs two years ago. “But I also hope that support systems, such as subsidies for in vitro fertilization [IVF] and childcare, will be established to increase people’s desire to have children.”
The 38-year-old always wanted to get pregnant before turning 40, but has not yet met the person she wants to marry. For her, having children is more important than marriage.
Lesbian couple, Mota and City, went through a tough process to have children due to the challenging nature of artificial reproduction.
Mota underwent IVF in Cambodia in 2019, shortly after same-sex marriage became legal in Taiwan.
Mota, now aged 41, became pregnant in 2020 via IVF. The entire procedure was riddled with all kinds of difficulties. Mota experienced high and low blood pressure, gestational diabetes and ascites before and during the pregnancy, but thankfully, their daughter Doby was born healthy after nine months.
City, now aged 33, also underwent IVF in Cambodia two years after Doby was born, but struck at 37 weeks when the baby’s heartbeat stopped.
The couple remain eager to expand their family and have already spent about NT$2 million (US$61,856) on overseas treatments in the past four years.
They said they hoped the government would acknowledge the needs of same-sex parents and establish better protocols so parents do not have to jump through more hoops to be recognized as the “true parents” of their children.
Taiwan LGBT Family Rights Advocacy secretary-general Reese Li (黎璿萍) said she hopes LGBTQ+ people would no longer be treated as “second-class citizens” and would have access to reproductive technologies, especially given that Taiwan legalized same-sex marriage five years ago.
Li said single women who want to have children face significant social pressure and stigma, especially in Asian societies where marriage before childbirth is considered the “done” thing.
National Taiwan University Department of Sociology professor Wu Chia-ling (吳嘉苓) said there were lingering doubts over including single women in the law due to concerns about “encouraging single-parent families.”
“It’s not just single women or same-sex couples who need to prepare for parenthood,” Wu said. “Everyone should have sufficient information before starting a family.”
Last year, about one-tenth of the 135,000 newborns were conceived using IVF or other artificial reproduction methods, Cathay General Hospital Assisted Reproductive Center head Lai Tsung-hsuan (賴宗炫) said.
These technologies were significantly contributing to “addressing Taiwan’s declining birth rate,” said Lai, who was positive about widening the scope of the law to include single women and lesbian couples.
This would eliminate the need for people to travel overseas to access treatment and allow more people to benefit from Taiwan’s medical advancements, he added.
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