The Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation on Monday argued against the legalization of surrogacy, saying that the procedure “treats women’s wombs as tools.”
The foundation on social media said that “wombs should not be treated as tools or commodities for producing children for others,” and that it was necessary to “safeguard women’s reproductive autonomy and bodily autonomy.”
Surrogacy would introduce risks of physical and psychological harm, it said.
Photo: Taipei Times
“The Artificial Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) and surrogacy fall under different policy domains,” the foundation said.
Single women and married female couples should have access to assisted reproductive technologies to ensure a woman’s right to bear and raise her own biological children, it said.
The Executive Yuan last month proposed amendments to the act, which includes granting married female couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services.
However, the Taiwan People’s Party also proposed an amendment that would legalize surrogacy in addition to assisted reproductive treatment for married female couples and single women.
The foundation said assisted reproductive technologies are different from surrogacy, which could lead to the exploitation of women, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
“Pregnancy involves risks related to prenatal care and childbirth, as well as emotional attachment to the child, all of which can have significant impacts on women’s physical and mental health, and could even affect the fetus,” it said.
Those concerns involve not only the human rights of women and children, but also health, legal and other broader issues, and therefore should not be addressed through amendments to the Artificial Reproduction Act, the foundation said.
The most common assisted reproductive techniques used in surrogacy are artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization, it said.
“However, regardless of whether artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization is used, both involve renting or borrowing another woman’s womb, effectively treating it as a reproductive tool and giving rise to concerns about commodification,” the foundation said.
Even with the most comprehensive legal safeguards — such as screening requirements to ensure surrogate mothers have sound mental health and adequate family support — it would still be impossible to prevent women from being coerced into surrogacy, it said.
“Women facing economic hardship or at a social disadvantage might choose surrogacy as a means of increasing their income,” the foundation said. “While such choices might appear to be made freely, the power imbalances between the commissioning parties and surrogate mothers often result in the latter’s autonomy being overlooked.”
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