Medically Assisted Reproduction : National Assembly Adopts Legal Framework Bill

Members of the National Assembly on June 29, 2022 during a plenary sitting presided at by the Senior Deputy Speaker of the House, Hon. Hilarion Etong adopted the bill relating to Medically Assisted Production in Cameroon. Public Health Minister, Manaouda Malachie defended the bill in the presence of the Minister Delegate at the Presidency in charge of Relations with the Assemblies, Bolvine Wakata.
Owing to the importance of medically assisted reproduction, some 13 MPs took to the rostrum to ask questions. Medically assisted reproduction has been practised in Cameroon for many years and has gained some magnitude with the Hospital Centre for Endoscopic Surgery and Human Reproduction Research and Application (CHRACERH), established by Presidential decree No. 2011/336 of 13 October 2011. The practice has however, been carried out without a legal framework, thus potentially paving the way for multiple abuses.
The bill contains the legal framework which seeks to provide a legal response to the strong desire for parenthood from married or unmarried couples, as well as a normative framework in terms of rules and procedures to be observed by sector practitioners. In this regard, the bill allows persons seeking Medically Assisted Reproduction (MAR) to realise their parenthood plans under appropriate legal protection, provides hospitals conducting or seeking to conduct MAR with legal framework governing their activities, as well as provides public authorities with a suitable sector control and regulatory tool. Indeed, the bill states and reaffirms principles that underpin the use and practice of the reproduction. The principles include: respect for the life and dignity of the human person, principle of prior, free and informed written consent, gratuity, voluntary participation and anonymity. It also reaffirms the principles of compli...