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Test-tube octuplets raises issues
Source: Xinhua |
December 26, 2011, Monday
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REPORTS surfaced just days ago about the birth of octuplets in Guangdong Province, focusing attention on surrogacy services in China.
According to media reports, after years of being unable to conceive, a wealthy couple from Guangzhou, the province's capital city, finally had eight babies via in-vitro fertilization (IVF) All eight embryos implanted in the wife and two surrogates survived.
Each of the surrogates carried three babies, and the biological mother carried two.
The three women gave birth to eight babies in September and October 2010, four girls and four boys. Eleven baby sitters are employed to look after the babies, the report said.
Although China's "one-child" policy is still in effect, multiple births are allowed, with some legal exceptions.
Some felt the couple's behavior violated the country's family-planning policy and said they should be fined since the wealthy family had their babies through advanced technologies that are out of the reach of poor families with fertility problems.
A mother surnamed Gao who lives in Guangzhou said that pregnancy is a very important time for a mother to establish an intimate relationship with her child, and she worried that surrogacy will raise a lot of ethical questions for children as they grow up.
Surrogate pregnancies are nothing new in China, as health experts have proved that worsening pollution and unhealthy urban lifestyles have pushed up infertility rates in recent years.
No official statistics are available on the number of agencies offering surrogacy services in China, but Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Weekly newspaper estimated in April 2009 that around 25,000 children had been born to surrogates in the past three decades.
Although the birth of the octuplets was through IVF and surrogacy, it indeed violated the family planning policy, and the agency that provided the services to the couple should also be punished.
The Health Department of Guangdong announced last week that it will conduct a strict examination of surrogacy services and suspend approvals for organizations with auxiliary reproduction services.
Meanwhile, 38 medical institutions, all of which have obtained licenses for human auxiliary reproduction technology services in Guangdong, will undergo special inspections to determine whether they have been involved in illegal activities, which include buying and selling gametes or embryos, providing surrogacy services, using non-certificated sperm, or checking the gender of fetuses without permission.
According to media reports, after years of being unable to conceive, a wealthy couple from Guangzhou, the province's capital city, finally had eight babies via in-vitro fertilization (IVF) All eight embryos implanted in the wife and two surrogates survived.
Each of the surrogates carried three babies, and the biological mother carried two.
The three women gave birth to eight babies in September and October 2010, four girls and four boys. Eleven baby sitters are employed to look after the babies, the report said.
Although China's "one-child" policy is still in effect, multiple births are allowed, with some legal exceptions.
Some felt the couple's behavior violated the country's family-planning policy and said they should be fined since the wealthy family had their babies through advanced technologies that are out of the reach of poor families with fertility problems.
A mother surnamed Gao who lives in Guangzhou said that pregnancy is a very important time for a mother to establish an intimate relationship with her child, and she worried that surrogacy will raise a lot of ethical questions for children as they grow up.
Surrogate pregnancies are nothing new in China, as health experts have proved that worsening pollution and unhealthy urban lifestyles have pushed up infertility rates in recent years.
No official statistics are available on the number of agencies offering surrogacy services in China, but Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Weekly newspaper estimated in April 2009 that around 25,000 children had been born to surrogates in the past three decades.
Although the birth of the octuplets was through IVF and surrogacy, it indeed violated the family planning policy, and the agency that provided the services to the couple should also be punished.
The Health Department of Guangdong announced last week that it will conduct a strict examination of surrogacy services and suspend approvals for organizations with auxiliary reproduction services.
Meanwhile, 38 medical institutions, all of which have obtained licenses for human auxiliary reproduction technology services in Guangdong, will undergo special inspections to determine whether they have been involved in illegal activities, which include buying and selling gametes or embryos, providing surrogacy services, using non-certificated sperm, or checking the gender of fetuses without permission.
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