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Taiwan is considering proposals to legalise surrogate motherhood but will impose strict rules to avoid ethical disputes and ensure there is no profit-making.

 Obstetrician Li Tsu-yao said married or divorced women aged between 20 and 40, who already had their own children, would be eligible to be surrogate mothers.

  Eggs and sperm should come from the natural parents, Dr Li said.

  The natural mother should either show she was born without a uterus, had her womb removed in an operation or was infertile.

  The natural father should be under 55 and the mother under 50 and they must not have any other children, said Dr Li, co-ordinator of the Health Department's artificial insemi nation committee.

  A surrogate motherhood arrangement would have to be certified by a court and should not be done for business purposes, he said.

  To avoid ethical disputes, surrogate mothers should come from the same generation as the natural parents.

   For example, a woman was not allowed to bear a child for her daughter.

Chance for parenthood  The department completed draft proposals after two years of discussions.

  Pharmacy director of Dr Sun Yat-sen Hospital, Janice Chen, said the proposals were a step forward in helping infertile couples.

   'Many women cannot bear children due to their physical conditions and should be eligible to seek help from surrogate mothers.'  A surrogate mother who refused to disclose her name said surrogacy was a better option than adoption.

  'While an adopted child is biologically unrelated to his 'parents', a child born of a surrogate mother shares at least part of the genetic material of the parents who will raise him. The couple will feel 'psychologically comfortable',' she said.

  'Surrogacy also gives someone else the chance to experience parenthood,' she added.

  Professor Gerhold Becker, director of the Hong Kong Baptist University's Centre for Applied Ethics, said surrogacy touched on fundamental issues of human dignity and rights of the child.

  'No one can prevent a married couple from having a child, but if they need a doctor to help them then it becomes a matter of public responsibility,' he said.

 Medical Council Ethics Committee member Dr Julia Tao Lai Po- wah said surrogacy should not be legal because of emotionally painful and legally complicated situations that could evolve.

 'Womb rental' was also an insult to women, she added.

  Father John Russell said the Catholic doctrine was against surrogacy because 'we think the act of love should not be separated from the creation of a child'.

  Dr Kenneth Mei, a graduate of a Catholic school and a retired academic, who is a Buddhist, had a different view.

  'The Catholic Church disapproves because they believe you are interfering with creation. But the Buddhists have no such belief. It is like using one chicken to hatch another chicken's eggs. We don't see a moral problem there,' Dr Mei said.



Surrogacy starts off moral debate