Public panel examines surrogacy

By Wang Hsiao-wen STAFF REPORTER  Tuesday, Aug 31, 2004

After years of fruitless bickering over the legalization of surrogate motherhood, a panel made up of 20 members of the public advising the Department of Health met last weekend to thrash out a position on the issue.

"Before the public says yes or no to such personal issues, we need to ensure that every voice is heard," said Lin Kuo-ming (林國明), an associate professor at the National Taiwan University who helped organize the panel. "Whether the panel can hammer out a consensus is beside the point. Our goal is to offer an open forum where equal opportunity to express one's opinion is granted."

Since the first of the nation's test-tube babies was born 19 years ago, the government has introduced regulations for artificial insemination to bring the country's legal system up to speed with medical advances and social change.

The Guidelines for the Ethics of Human Procreation and Reproductive Technologies (人工生殖技術倫理指導綱領) were announced in 1986 and the Regulations on Human Reproductive Technologies (人工生殖技術管理辦法) took effect in 1994.

In both laws, however, the controversial issue of surrogate motherhood was omitted.

The department played down the exclusion, asserting that "surrogate motherhood, at odds with current social mores and the legal system, and involving complex obligations and rights, should be temporarily left out," in an explanation on its Web site.

Despite the department's claim, some academics have urged the public to look deeper into the debate. The ethical and legal conundrum revolves around whether it is justified realizing the dreams of childless couples at the cost of reducing human relations to financial transactions.

"If reproduction is one of the basic human rights, then the means of human reproduction should be included, by definition," said Chiu Ching-hwa (邱清華), honorary president of the Society of Law and Medicine. "The public aversion to surrogate motherhood comes from one simple idea -- we might endorse this right to reproduction, but we don't want this right to become a marketable good or service."

Perhaps the biggest surprise in this debate is that some feminists have themselves become the most vocal opponents. Some oppose legalization, contending that surrogate motherhood is a materialization of the female body by medical technology.

"When not an act of love or charity, bearing a baby for another woman implies that the uterus has become more a tool to earn money than an intimate space for a fetus," said Huang Hsu-ying (黃淑英), chairwoman of the League of Taiwan Women.

Some feminists also argue that the notion of the surrogate mother, far from liberating women from the century-old myth of lineage and consanguinity on which patriarchy is founded, entrenches hegemony instead.

"Why must a woman take up the role of childbearer? By reconsolidating the link between `woman' and `childbearer,' surrogate motherhood can turn out to be the accomplice of patriarchy," Huang said.

But for those women in agony over their infertility, theories of female oppression by technology and the female body as a "discourse" of ideology do not address the harsh reality they suffer.

Chen Gau-tzu (陳昭姿), chief pharmacist at Taipei's Koo Foundation Sun Yat-sen Cancer Center, and who once sought another woman to have a baby for her, rebutted the feminists' argument as "healthy women oppressing unhealthy women in the name of feminism."

Chen said that signing a contract for pregnancy is probably the most self-aware and autonomous decision a surrogate mother and a custodial mother can make.

"Speaking from personal experience," Chen said, "I can tell you that the decision is well thought out. After all, it is a matter of life, not a war between ideologies."

Many people have suggested adoption as a less contested solution for couples wanting children, but Chen said there was no reason why one option should be legalized and another removed by the government and condemned by the public.

"We just want to keep options open. Whether to adopt or to use a surrogate mother is a question of personal preference, an issue of mutual consent. How can the public deny women their rights?" Chen said.

The panel, composed of 12 women and eight men randomly chosen from 92 applications, attended classes on the debate during the weekend-long meeting. Lin said that professors of sociology, law and medicine offered a range of perspectives. The panel's position is expected to serve as a litmus test for public reaction to surrogate motherhood.