(LifeSiteNews) — The Parliament of Rwanda has passed a bill legalizing surrogacy for unmarried individuals and contraceptives for 15-year-olds.
Last week, the legislature of the eastern African nation passed the landmark healthcare service bill, which expands access to surrogacy to unmarried people, if a doctor determines they are unable to conceive a child naturally.
Surrogacy was legalized in Rwanda last year, but the new bill now makes it possible for single people and unmarried couples to acquire a child through surrogacy.
“After discussions and consultations with government representative, committee members agreed that ART [Assisted Reproductive Technology] services should be available not only to married couples but also to other individuals who are unable to conceive naturally, provided that a medical doctor confirms the condition,” MP Veneranda Uwamariya, who serves as chairperson of the Committee on Social Affairs, said.
“There are cases where people remain unmarried by choice and or lack partners, but want to have children,” said MP Gloriose Mukamwiza.
READ: Homosexual pedophile obtains baby boy through surrogacy
Health Minister Yvan Butera confirmed that ART will be available for anyone unable to conceive naturally due to biological reasons. Infertility could stem from natural conditions or medical treatments such as chemotherapy, he noted.
The bill also allows for minors as young as 15 to access contraceptives. Previously, the law only allowed individuals who reached the “majority age,” i.e., 18, to have “the right to decide for oneself in relation to human reproductive health issues.”
Some Members of Parliament argued that condoms should be prioritized over hormonal contraceptives like the anti-baby pill or injectables.
However, Uwamariya claimed that condom distribution was not sufficient.
“Other options needed to be considered to help address the persistent challenge of teenage pregnancy,” he stated.
Responding to the concerns regarding the right of parents to decide what is best for their underage children, he claimed the law “does not replace parental responsibility.”
“What we are doing here is that we are going to be able to provide those services to a certain portion of the population. In which we are seeing a lot of issues because the lack of access to those services was causing a lot of health and social risk to the teenagers, but also the children that were born from these teenagers,” he said.
“We saw that children born to teenage girls have a 38 percent increase in risk to have stunting compared to others [the general population]. So, we are protecting not only these teenage girls but also their offspring to prevent that so that we have a society where everyone can afford the best of it,” he argued.
However, Uwamariya and his allies failed to mention that abstinence is the only secure and moral option to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Rwanda’s population is over 90 percent Christian, with Catholics constituting the largest proportion, making up more than 40 percent of the total population.
