TAIWAN to mull legalizing surrogacy

TAIPEI (The China Post) : The Taiwan government will soon hold a meeting to discuss regulations related to surrogacy in Taiwan, an official from the Bureau of Health Promotion under the Department of Health said yesterday.

A draft Surrogacy Act covering over 40 regulations was drawn up in 2004 but after more than 20 international meetings, experts failed to reach consensus on legal issues pertaining to sperm and egg donations, the rights of surrogate mothers, biological parents, and children, the bureau's Deputy Director-General Kung Hsien-lan said.
The department will discuss whether to include those issues in the artificial reproduction bill or establish a new law in the near future, with a view to lifting the ban on surrogacy, Kung said.
Kung said she hopes to implement as soon as possible the conclusions reached at a meeting in September to allow infertile couples to donate healthy eggs and sperm for surrogate births.
The government should provide legal protections for all parties involved and ensure that surrogate mothers will be given money only for necessary expenses rather than as a reward, she said.
Over 5,000 infertile couples in Taiwan who were eager to have children of their own have sought surrogate mothers outside the law since they cannot afford to pay for surrogacy in other countries, said Kuomintang Legislator Chiang Huei-chen at the conference with Kung.
A new regulation covering the relationship between rights and obligations should be established as part of the solutions to key identity authentication issues, said Kuo Chuan-ching of the Department of Legal Affairs under the Ministry of Justice.
The surrogacy issue came to the fore after Lien Hui-hsin, the eldest daughter of Kuomintang Honorary Chairman Lien Chan, recently had three daughters via two surrogate mothers in the United States.