MPs want law on test-tube babies enforced

MPs Wednesday made an emotional call to help childless couples have children through in-vitro fertilisation (IVF).

Millie Odhiambo (Mbita) teamed up with Joyce Lay (Taita Taveta) as they pleaded with their colleagues to back a bill that will deal with children born out of IVF. The procedure involves having the egg from a woman and sperm from a man fertilised in a laboratory and then implanting the resulting embryo in a woman’s womb.

They said the law currently requires parents of such children to go to court to claim them, especially where surrogate mothers are involved.

The MPs spoke about the “modern reality” of impotent and barren mothers who have to turn to science to have children. They said the time had come for IVF to be included in the law.

“What we have tried to do is to be sensitive to religious issues but at the same time meet the reality. If we don’t pass this law, it is not that in-vitro fertilisation will be unlawful, therefore it will still go on. The only problem is that the courts will have to now and again litigate on this issue,” said Ms Odhiambo, the sponsor of the In Vitro Fertilisation Bill.

The two women MPs spoke of their suffering as a result of their childless lives, citing unprintable “below the belt” abuses that have been thrown their way in the course of their political work.

Odhiambo said Lay had to fight for custody of her child born through IVF.

“Lay had to go for this (IVF) because of medical reasons. But after she had the child, she was forced to go to court for an order to adopt her own child, even though she is the biological mother,” said Odhiambo.

She said it costs between Sh300,000 and Sh1 million per cycle, and “when it (IVF) fails, the money is not refunded”.

“God gave me a special opportunity to be in this House for a purpose. I have met many women who are facing challenges with having children, I will be their voice,” Odhiambo added.

For Lay, who spoke sorrowfully, the struggle for women visiting clinics to have children through scientific means was real.

“I was shocked to find women who cannot have children there crying, in pain, because they want to be called mothers. That tells you there’s a huge problem,” said Lay.

Health Committee chairperson Rachel Nyamai (Kitui South) and Robert Pukose (Endebess) said the committee had rejected the bill.

“The bill raises serious ethical issues, among them the right to life. It has potential for abuse through research,” said Mr Pukose as he raised religious leaders' concerns.

They asked Odhiambo to withdraw the bill.

But John Mbadi (Suba) rejected the moral angle. “I am also a Christian. But we need to accept certain realities. The Bible says we must reproduce, it does not say how. It does not say there must be sexual intercourse,” he said.