PETITION ON THE RIGHTS OF SINGLE MEN TO ACCESS TO ASSISTED REPRODUCTION

Úřad vlády ČR
Rada vlády pro lidská práva
nábřeží Edvarda Beneše 4
118 01 Praha 1
 

PETITION ON THE RIGHTS OF SINGLE MEN TO ACCESS TO ASSISTED REPRODUCTION 
 

Petition as per § 1 act no. 85/1990 Sb., o právu petičním
The below-signed are represented by Adam Czech Republic, z.s.,  IČO 22866060, Jungmannova 38, 37001 České Budějovice, the authorised person is doc. PhDr. Ing. Hana Konečná, PhD., the chair of the NGO. .

In recent months even the Parliament of the Czech Republic discusses the right of a single woman to become a mother through assisted reproduction guaranteed by the government. As a legal support, the article 16 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948, further Declaration of Rights) has been mentioned: „Men and women of full age, without any limitation … have the right to marry and to found a family. ” Because of art. 2: „Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status“, we demand that the same right to government-guaranteed assisted reproduction applies also for single men.

The development of artificial sperm, oocyte and uteri is not yet in the state of common use, the single applicant therefore depends on the help of a donor. Also for that there is a legal support (art. 1):  „All human beings are born … with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”; the Declaration of Rights emphasizes here the mutual help as a key value of humanity. The document was formed in 1948, when there not only was no assisted reproduction, but also there were no hormonal contraception. If something is interpreted in a different time context, logically it needs to be interpreted as a whole, hence also the aforementioned article 1. In the contemporary interpretation, and considering the topic, it is therefore necessary to demand for the actions to be not only brotherly (sperm donation), but also sisterly (oocyte donation and surrogate motherhood).

Other key document, the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine  (1997, further Convention on Biomedicine) requires for the donor to be well-informed (art. 5): „An intervention in the health field may only be carried out after the person concerned has given free and informed consent to it. This person shall beforehand be given appropriate information as to the purpose and nature of the intervention as well as on its consequences and risks.“  We believe that only those individuals, whose decision is very thoroughly and responsibly thought-out, will ask for assisted reproduction. Only these individuals are therefore, in our opinion, able to grant a genuine informed and non-enforced consent with the donation; furthermore the  Convention on Biomedicine acknowledges only an altruistic donation (art. 21):  „The human body and its parts shall not, as such, give rise to financial gain“, which is possible  to ensure best with mutual help. Therefore we demand so that only those individuals are accepted as donors, who are at the same time also single applicants for assisted reproduction.

Article 2 of the Declaration of Rights stipulates „Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs“. The principle was later elaborated in the Maastricht Treaty (1992, free movement of persons) and in the v EU Directive 2011/24/EU on the free movement of patients. By the Czech National Register of Assisted Reproduction, more than 85 % of the oocytes from Czech donors were provided to foreign patients in 2014; one can hence anticipate a similar approach also with that government guarantee of assisted reproduction for singles. The mutual help principle, which we demand in the previous paragraph, must naturally apply to everyone, regardless of the country of their origin. We therefore propose establishing the EU registry for coupling the female applicants (also future oocyte donors and surrogate mothers) and male applicants (also future sperm donors).

If reproduction is redefined as a right of an individual, probably the health insurance companies will stop to reimburse it. Because EU repeatedly declares the preservation of European values and culture as one of the most important goals (which necessarily needs to be accomplished by the care for population), we propose establishing of an EU fund, from which all related costs will be covered. We leave to consideration how to meet the requirement of a visible labelling „Supported by the EU“ and a logo with stars.

The goal of this petition is to point out in a „shortcut form“ the consequences of the intended legislative changes of family arrangements. More detailed analyses were sent in 2016 and earlier to the Czech Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, they are available in Czech for download at
http://www.adamcr.cz/informacni-odbor/reprodukcni-medicina/etika.

V Českých Budějovicích, 19.6.2017

The printed version of the petition to download here

To whom will the petition be forwarded: Úřad vlády ČR, Rada vlády pro lidská práva

Petition signature must be confirmed in a subsequent e-mail.