MP seeks radical laws to guide surrogacy, prevent exploitation

A pregnant African woman holding her stomach. [Getty Images]

Women wishing to become surrogate mothers will only do so three times if proposed laws are passed.

They will also be required to wait for two years between each birth to be eligible for another surrogacy agreement.

Suba North MP Millie Odhiambo fronted the amendments to the Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill 2022, which are currently being considered by the committee.

Surrogacy is a process in which a woman carries and delivers a baby for a couple or individual.

The Bill seeks to introduce guidelines to regulate the process as well as other aspects of assisted reproductive technology.

The proposals are, therefore, aimed at providing more stringent measures to prevent financial exploitation by women who would wish to be "career" surrogates.

Under the proposals, men wishing to donate their sperms or women seeking to donate their embryos to aid infertile couples cannot do so more than 10 times.

"A person shall not perform a treatment procedure using gametes or an embryo produced by a donor if such procedure may result in more than 10 children who are genetic siblings," reads the Bill.

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For one to undergo the assisted reproductive technology, the draft dictates that a doctor who is an assisted reproductive technology expert must approve.

Assisted reproductive technology includes medical procedures used primarily to address infertility. This subject involves procedures such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), intracytoplasmic sperm injection, cryopreservation of gametes or embryos, and the use of fertility medication.

The proposals also seek to regulate medical practitioners undertaking assisted reproductive technology and state that they shall not keep or use an embryo other than a human embryo, place a human embryo in any animal or transfer an embryo in a woman other than a human embryo.

They are also prohibited from using a human embryo in circumstances prohibited by law, replacing any part of a human embryo with another part from a cell of any person or embryo, or any subsequent development of an embryo, except where such replacement is for purposes of solving a medical problem.

Medical practitioners are also prohibited from undertaking any form of human cloning.

The proposals note that a man whose sperms have been used should not be treated as the father of the child unless the mother was married to him at the time of his death, and the man had consented to parentage.

"A person who contravenes the provisions of this section commits an offence and shall, upon conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding Sh5 million or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years, or to both," says the Bill.

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The Health committee has also proposed the setting up of cryo-banks - assisted reproductive clinics - which will only contain sperms (gametes) from men aged between 21 and 35, and oocytes (eggs before maturity) from women aged 23 to 35.

Moreover, an assisted reproductive technology expert will be required to obtain prior informed and written consent from the parties.

"It (the consent) should also stipulate what should be done with the gametes or embryos in case of the death of any of the parties seeking assisted reproductive technology services, incapacity of any of the parties seeking assisted reproductive technology services, abandonment of the gametes or embryos, dispute, divorce; or separation," the proposals read in part.