Tag Archives: Country: Taiwan

Catholic Culture: The agreement with the Republic of China (Taiwan) contrasts dramatically with the situation in mainland China, where the Church has vigorously protested the government’s efforts to exert control over Catholic institutions.

Taipei Times: The Taipei High Administrative Court yesterday held a three-judge court hearing in a case involving two gay men seeking to have their marriage be given legal status . . . The court announced that a ruling would be handed down on Dec. 20.

Tapei Times: On Monday, Shih said in a Facebook post that same-sex marriage is not just a basic human right protected by the Constitution, but is also beneficial from a health perspective and would help to prevent and control the spread of HIV/AIDS.

LifeSiteNews.com: A report from Taiwanese health authorities says that a crackdown on illegal sex-selective abortions prevented the deaths of nearly 1,000 female unborn babies in 2011.

Taipei Times: Taiwan is trailing only China in the ratio of males to females at birth, with a sex ratio way above what would normally occur without abortions

AFP: bout 60 lesbian couples will tie the knot in Taiwan’s biggest same-sex mass wedding in the hope that the island will soon follow New York to legalise gay marriage, an organiser said Tuesday.

AP: Taiwan’s health ministry says hospitals will be penalized for conducting gender selective abortions blamed for up to 3,000 aborted female fetuses last year.

Taipei Times: In two months, the Department of Health will release the results of an investigation into gender selective abortions that have taken place in hospitals and will fine violators, a health official said yesterday.

Conn Carroll writing at The Heritage Foundation / The Foundry: “In another development from last week, this one virtually ignored by the establishment media, the Department of Defense released its annual Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China. According to the report, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) official budget, which has enjoyed double-digit annual increases for two decades, grew again by nearly 8 percent . . . More troubling, however, was what the report did not focus enough on: the threat to Taiwan. There is little discussion of the Taiwan military structure or its equipment . . . Meanwhile, while the Obama Defense Department is ignoring the threat to Taiwan, the Obama State Department has gotten off to a poor start defending human rights in China.”

Yukari Semba, Kaori Muto, Hyunsoo Hong, Chiungfang Chang, Ayako Kamisoto, and Minori Kokado, Surrogacy: Donor Conception Regulation in Japan. Bioethics, Vol. 24, Issue 7, pp. 348-357, September 2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1654083 or doi:10.1111/j.1467-8519.2009.01780.x

As of 2008, surrogacy is legal and openly practised in various places; Japan, however, has no regulations or laws regarding surrogacy. This paper reports the situation of surrogacy in Japan and in five other regions (the USA, the UK, Taiwan, Korea and France) to clarify the pros and cons of prohibiting surrogacy, along with the problems and issues relating to surrogacy compensation.”

Reuters: “Taiwan is scrambling to raise its birthrate, among the world’s lowest, before the sinking number of newborns threatens productivity for its export-driven $390 billion economy. Taiwan fears it will lack the manpower or brainpower in 10 to 15 years to keep up with industrialized Asian peers and the blooming economies of some Southeast Asian countries.”

Killed, aborted or neglected, at least 100m girls have disappeared—and the number is rising . . .

Taiwan News: “The government has tentatively decided to decriminalize prostitution in response to sex workers’ appeals for better protection of their human rights, a senior official said Wednesday.”

AP: “Declines in Israel, Italy and Taiwan illustrate that established democracies with traditional open media are not immune to restricting freedom,” said Arch Puddington, research director for Freedom House, a nonprofit organization that plans to release the report on Friday in advance of World Press Freedom Day on Sunday.

Police announced Saturday the busting in offshore Penghu County of a cross-Taiwan Strait human trafficking ring, saying that nine people have been arrested for suspected involvement in the operations.

My dissertation tells a story of the abortion right in Taiwan: how abortion was not a right either before or after its legalization, how it became a right after the mobilization of social movements and democratization, and finally, what sort of right it is today.