Single women’s access to egg freezing in mainland China: an ethicolegal analysis
文件分类:论文
发布日期:2023年5月5日
作者/主要创作者:Hao Wang
相关机构/单位/期刊/出版社:
编号:doi:10.1136/ jme-2023-108915
备注:
议题:生育
群体:妇女
学科:
无链接 文件下载In the name of safeguarding public interests and ethical principles, China’s National Health Commission bans unmarried women from using assisted reproductive technology (ART), including egg freezing. Supported by local governments, the ban has restricted single women’s reproductive rights nationwide. Although some courts bypassed the ban to allow widowed single women to use ART, they have not adopted a position in favour of single women’s reproductive autonomy, but quite the contrary. Faced with calls to relax the ban and allow single women to freeze eggs electively, the National Health Commission refused to amend their policy, partly to protect women’s well-being paternalistically and partly to implement the central government’s policies to boost the birthrate and maintain traditional family structures. While the government’s concerns about elective egg freezing are not entirely unfounded, they have failed to demonstrate that banning single women’s egg freezing is a suitable, necessary and proportionate means to safeguard societal interests and ethical principles. The authority’s assumptions that women cannot make rational decisions for their health even with adequate informed consent procedures, that banning egg freezing by single women promotes a culture of having children ’at a proper age’, and that egg freezing by single women offends China’s public moralities have not been substantiated.