The Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to submit proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法), which would allow same-sex couples and single women access to in vitro fertilization (IVF), to the Executive Yuan for review before the end of the year, officials said yesterday.
A preview of the draft bill, which also includes regulations governing surrogacy and IVF providers, was opened to public feedback from May 14 to July 13, and received 600 responses, Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Tai-yuan (邱泰源) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee to discuss the bill.
The responses were mainly concerned with questions about the welfare of children born via IVF and equal rights protection for LGBTQ+ couples during assessment for IVF treatment, Chiu said.
Photo: CNA
They also expressed concern over surrogate children’s legal status and rights, legal classification of surrogacy agencies and the policy’s potential side effects, including possible exploitation of surrogate mothers and human trafficking, he said.
The amendments aim to address concerns about implementing equality rules in IVF eligibility assessment process to protect single women and lesbian couples, he said.
Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of the meeting that the ministry is working on regulations governing surrogate mothers, but it is proceeding with caution because of the fraught nature of the issue, he said.
The ministry has convened six meetings with experts in medicine, women’s rights, children’s rights, ethics, and law to discuss surrogate motherhood, he said.
The ministry expects the Health Promotion Administration to submit a drat bill in November, Chiu said.
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
An aviation jacket patch showing a Formosan black bear punching Winnie the Pooh has become popular overseas, including at an aviation festival held by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at the Ashiya Airbase yesterday. The patch was designed last year by Taiwanese designer Hsu Fu-yu (徐福佑), who said that it was inspired by Taiwan’s countermeasures against frequent Chinese military aircraft incursions. The badge shows a Formosan black bear holding a Republic of China flag as it punches Winnie the Pooh — a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — who is dressed in red and is holding a honey pot with
Celebrations marking Double Ten National Day are to begin in Taipei today before culminating in a fireworks display in Yunlin County on the night of Thursday next week. To start the celebrations, a concert is to be held at the Taipei Dome at 4pm today, featuring a lineup of award-winning singers, including Jody Chiang (江蕙), Samingad (紀曉君) and Huang Fei (黃妃), Taipei tourism bureau official Chueh Yu-ling (闕玉玲) told a news conference yesterday. School choirs, including the Pqwasan na Taoshan Choir and Hngzyang na Matui & Nahuy Children’s Choir, and the Ministry of National Defense Symphony Orchestra, flag presentation unit and choirs,
China is attempting to subsume Taiwanese culture under Chinese culture by promulgating legislation on preserving documents on ties between the Minnan region and Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said yesterday. China on Tuesday enforced the Fujian Province Minnan and Taiwan Document Protection Act to counter Taiwanese cultural independence with historical evidence that would root out misleading claims, Chinese-language media outlet Straits Today reported yesterday. The act is “China’s first ad hoc local regulations in the cultural field that involve Taiwan and is a concrete step toward implementing the integrated development demonstration zone,” Fujian Provincial Archives deputy director Ma Jun-fan (馬俊凡) said. The documents