Committee moves to ban homosexuals from artificial insemination

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on April 20, 2006. It reports that according to members at the Sanitation and Environment Committee and the Social Welfare Committee of the Legislative Yuan, no homosexual individuals or couples, single parents, unmarried couples, singles, widowed persons, or anyone in a non-legal spousal relationship should be allowed to receive artificial insemination.

Legislators at the two committees are currently drafting an artificial insemination law. In their opinion, medical and research institutions and philanthropic groups should be permitted to extract and store reproductive cells for future use. Meanwhile, each person should be allowed to donate reproductive cells only once in their lifetime.

According to these legislators, artificial insemination should be reserved only for legally married heterosexual couples in order to protect the rights of unborn children. Another purpose of the law would be to protect the continuation of the family line.

According to these legislators, the "once in a lifetime" reproduction cell donation limit aims to prevent incestuous behavior and commercial exchanges. Under the draft bill, only males between 20 and 50 years of age and females between 20 and 40 years of age would be allowed to donate reproductive cells. This is because medical studies have shown that women who are over 40 years of age have 60 percent less chance of being fertilized.

As the legislators reviewed the draft bill, their discussion was centered on whether donors should be required to obtain spousal consent. While no conclusion had been reached, the legislators were learning toward the regulation that the consent of spouses should be obtained before donation of reproductive cells.

Finally, according to the legislators, the draft bill does not and is unlikely to include a clause that permits the extraction of sperms from a deceased male.