By: Brighten Abaho
Despite the growing acceptance of surrogacy practice in Uganda for the last decade, there is little development in the legislative, institutional and policy framework on the practice.
Whereas the surrogacy practice has a constitutional basis, there isn’t a substantive legislative and policy frameworks which materialize the enjoyment of constitutional rights. In-vitro fertilization, popularly known as the process for getting test tube babies, has become a reality in Uganda.
One of the most interesting components of this science is the possibility of one woman carrying another woman’s pregnancy. This has for a very long time raised legal and ethical questions that remain unanswered by present-day Ugandan laws.
The practice has survived at the mercy of social engineering and a self-regulation model designed by key stakeholders. However the jurisprudence emanating from other jurisdictions remains amorphous as the self-regulation model has failed to address and curb the rampant emergence of illegal surrogacies.
This explains the move by Tororo Woman MP, Sarah Opendi who sought leave of Parliament to introduce a Private Member’s bill entitled The Surrogacy and Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill. The former junior health minister told the House that although different mechanisms of getting children
through the participation of other partners are already happening in the country; the field remains unregulated and as thus raises a lot of questions.
Surrogacy is where a woman (called the birth mother) receives the baby (egg that has been fertilized) into her womb to carry and deliver. Sometimes, a male’s sperm is put directly into the woman and she carries the baby who is born after the 9 months. This means that such a male does not need to sleep
with the woman himself.
In Uganda, the surrogacy practice currently operates under the shadow of the Children’s Act and the Registration of Persons Act but both laws don’t adequately recognize surrogacy arrangements nor do they confer special rights and duties to parties in a surrogacy arrangement.
The underlying themes in these two Acts only represent the orthodox way of conception and they do not reflect contemporary conceptions through assisted reproductive processes. The Children’s Act which is a major legislation on children does not provide for surrogacy, neither does it do so expressly or by implication. In addition, the Act restricts the definition of a mother or father of a child to mean the genetic mother or father, this leaves out the children born of surrogate parents.
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