Bravo to the lawmakers for their hard work in pushing for the lifting of restrictions for the storage of gametes or embryos for personal use for Hong Kong residents. Their hard work has come to fruition.
Last week, the Council on Human Reproductive Technology formally proposed that Hongkongers should be allowed to store embryos for as long as they want, regardless of the age, sex or medical conditions of the residents. The same day, it launched a month-long public consultation on the matter.
It has been a long and hard struggle. Convincing the government to lift restrictions on storage duration has been difficult given its view that doing so would encourage further delays to child-bearing decisions, which goes against the government’s desire to encourage having children at an earlier age.
However, the array of factors that influence family planning makes capping storage duration to encourage women to have children an ineffective approach. For example, given the rising median age for first marriage in Hong Kong – it reached 31 for women and 32.6 for men last year – pushing for earlier childbearing could be counterproductive.
All credit goes to the lawmakers who kept pushing for this change. It’s a small but significant move in the right direction.
Among those fighting for the change is Nixie Lam Lam, who opted for assisted reproduction to have her child in 2023. Her personal story provides a fuller picture of the experience of couples using assisted-fertility treatments. It also points to the need for more to be done.
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