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"id": 1369181,
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"content": "However, in those days, it was allowed for a woman, especially if the man had a problem, to secretly be given the brother or the cousin to the husband, to be able to have a child so that nobody could know in the home that the man was not producing. The other way around, the man was allowed to have another wife. However, the first wife or the one who was not childbearing would endure many difficult times in that home. That wife who could not bear a child could sometimes be given the child of the second wife or allowed to bring the sister or the brother's daughter to get married to the husband, get children, and some of those children would be given to them. That is not the case these days. We all know that as we speak now, if you do not have a child, it is a torment, and normally the blame is on the woman throughout. Therefore, assisted technology can support women going through this or couples with that problem. I am a witness to Hon. Shakeel Shabbir's case. He is my neighbour in Kisumu and has very beautiful children out of that. This Bill, when used properly, could help us culturally. On the other hand, medically, we all know that right now, we have rampant sicknesses. Some of those rampant sicknesses, like cancer, come at an early age. You have those who get cancer even at 15, 14, or 12 years old, and mostly, when they do this, they go through what we call gonadotoxic therapies. Those are therapies like chemotherapy radiation that destroys the sperm or ovum. When this happens, those people will never have a chance of getting children. It is important to consider them, and in most cases, it would be fantastic if they could have their eggs removed before the therapies are started so that they later have children when they want them. That is another fact that I think medically is important. We also know we rampantly have something called endometriosis that many of us women are suffering now. Those are some of the sicknesses that, once you have, you cannot produce. It is, therefore, important that medically, we consider this technology to support those of us who cannot get children. However, having been in Europe, I noticed that there were a lot of issues surrounding surrogacy, where those who agree to carry the child change their minds during childbirth or after giving birth. They say that they want the child when they were just a carrier of the child from the other couple. This couple tends to lose or engage in lengthy court battles that also end up affecting the child, and brings up many issues of how ethical or good it is for the child who now suffers because of this. I believe, like Hon. (Dr) Nyikal, who is an expert and has discussed with us the laws, that laws must be put in place for us to ensure that people do not misuse this technology, especially in a case where they want same-sex children and all that, which I am afraid I have to disagree with. But then, let us have it. I support this Bill. Thank you."
}