The Ministry of Health and Welfare said it has decided to separate the issue of surrogacy from its proposed package of amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法).
The ministry’s draft amendments were first announced on May 14, with the ministry aiming to broaden access to artificial insemination for single women, same-sex couples and surrogate mothers.
The amendments were to be submitted to the Legislative Yuan for review this month, but the ministry changed its position after women’s groups and lawmakers opposed the proposed “surrogate mother system.”
Photo: CNA
Surrogacy is illegal in Taiwan, but concerns about the nation’s falling fertility rate and declining population have shifted public opinion toward allowing couples to use surrogate mothers.
On Monday morning, eight Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers called for the issue of surrogacy to be addressed separately from the Assisted Reproduction Act, and the ministry later that day announced it would first deal with the draft amendments in which a consensus has been achieved — including broadening eligibility for assisted reproduction to lesbians and single women — while addressing the more contentious issue of surrogacy separately.
“Civil society groups and the public have continued to express their opposition to surrogacy,” Health Promotion Administration Director-General Wu Chao-chun (吳昭軍) said.
A survey found that “about 80 percent” of more than 600 comments received by the ministry concerning potential changes to the law expressed opposition to surrogacy, Wu said.
“It is difficult to weigh the rights and interests of various stakeholders involved in the surrogacy process,” he said, referring to surrogate children, surrogate mothers and those seeking surrogate births.
Given the change in direction on surrogacy, the ministry will revise its package of amendments and submit it for approval to the Executive Yuan by the end of the year before sending it to the Legislative Yuan for review.
Before then, the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee is scheduled to review tomorrow 16 amendments proposed by various political parties.
A coalition of women’s rights groups — including the League of Taiwan Women — yesterday said that surrogacy is harmful to human rights, urging lawmakers to oppose its legalization.
The coalition added that it would hold protests tomorrow when the legislative committees begin reviewing the bill.
Taiwan Anti-Surrogate Pregnancy Action Group spokeswoman Chen Kai-ning (陳愷寧) said the nation should not commodify women’s wombs for the sake of procreation or boosting birthrates.
Women’s bodies are not reproductive tools and infants are not merchandise, she said.
Separately yesterday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chen Ching-hui (陳菁徽), who is also a fertility specialist, panned the ministry for dropping surrogacy from the proposed amendments to the act, saying the decision politicized a livelihood issue.
The bill had formerly enjoyed support from across the political divide for its potential to improve the lives of LGBTQ people, single women and women with womb disorders, she said, adding that lawmakers need to discuss the matter.
President William Lai (賴清德), Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chih-mai (陳其邁) 22 years ago cosponsored the first-ever bill to legalize surrogacy when they were lawmakers, she said.
The DPP caucus similarly supported a version of the act’s amendments that included legalizing surrogacy legalization in the previous legislative session, only to turn against it the day before, Chen said.
Criticism that surrogate pregnancy would commodify the womb stems from ideological and political manipulations that contravene the opinions of experts and medical professionals consulted in the law’s writing, she said.
Taiwanese women are having children at an increasingly older age, resulting in higher risks of complications that affect fertility, Chen Ching-hui said, adding that surrogacy could be an option for those who want, but cannot have children.
The nation that promulgated marriage equality in 2016 should do more to guarantee LGBTQ couples also enjoy the right to have children, she said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
IN FULL SWING: Recall drives against lawmakers in Hualien, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have reached the second-stage threshold, the campaigners said Campaigners in a recall petition against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) in Taichung yesterday said their signature target is within sight, and that they need a big push to collect about 500 more signatures from locals to reach the second-stage threshold. Recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) are also close to the 10 percent threshold, and campaigners are mounting a final push this week. They need about 800 signatures against Chiang and about 2,000 against Yang. Campaigners seeking to recall Lo said they had reached the threshold figure over the