A debate in the legislature on raising Hong Kong’s fertility rate turned emotional between the health minister and a female lawmaker on Thursday, after the top official suggested that a frozen seed may not grow on “soil” that deteriorates with age.
Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau also said that he hoped young people would balance their family and career by getting married and having children at an earlier age. Lo was addressing a motion on policies to support assisted reproduction.
Lawmaker Judy Chan Kapui proposed extending the current 10-year storage period for egg freezing, but Lo argued that the measure would not tackle the underlying issue.
“There are physiological limitations to female reproductive age,” Lo said. “While you can preserve the seeds, [women’s] ‘soil’ has already changed with age.”
Lawmaker Nixie Lam Lam, 42, who opted for assisted reproduction and gave birth to her child last year, appeared to get emotional and called Lo’s comment a blow to women.
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Ageing and fertility: why Asian women are freezing their eggs
Ageing and fertility: why Asian women are freezing their eggs
“I am unable to have children because of poor ‘soil’?” Lam said. “The way you spoke today, I believe, is also a significant blow to women who do not have fertility issues.
“You are telling them that there is a possibility to have children, but it’s just because your ‘soil’ has issues, thus you cannot conceive naturally. Please consider starting a family earlier and let nature take its course.
“How can you have children at the age of 18 while studying? Not everyone can get married in their 20s while studying, just like the minister yourself,”
Lam stressed that late marriage was a reality in Hong Kong.
The debate came as the number of childless couples in the city reached concerning level. The average number of children also dropped to a record low of 0.9 per couple.
The latest census statistics also showed that only 32,600 new births were recorded in the year to June last year, down from 35,100 over the same period in 2022.
Under Hong Kong’s regulations, the maximum period for storing eggs, sperm and embryos is 10 years. Some clinics charge as much as HK$200,000 (US$25,600) for the service, covering the full period.
Lam, who initiated the motion, had urged authorities to formulate measures to enhance assisted reproductive services, such as extending the 10-year storage period of oocytes, increasing the quotas of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) clinics or subfertility assessment clinic services in public healthcare institutions.
She also urged the government to encourage childbearing by providing subsidies to the public who used assisted reproductive technologies.
Lawmaker Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee said that she had her first child at the age of 39 through reproductive technology, and parents under such circumstances tended to be more anxious about their children.
“The minister always said people should have children while they are young. I told him this is ironic to a lot of working women,” Ip said.
But Lo said he did not want to see healthy couples miss the best fertility period and instead just rely on assisted technologies.
In 2023, the successful rate of IVF for patients aged 26 to 30 was 50 per cent, and the figure dropped to 20 per cent for those aged 36 to 40, according to statistics from the Council on Human Reproductive Technology.
It declines even further to below 10 per cent for individuals aged 41 or above.
“So you can see the reproductive capability of women drops quickly when their age increases. It is not the problem of the ‘seed’ only, it is also a problem about the ‘soil’,” Lo said.
“Even if one freezes her eggs after 40 years old, the chance for the ‘seed’ to become a healthy and energetic baby will be reduced significantly if the ‘soil’ has problems.”
Lo suggested alternative proposals to raise the city’s fertility rate including coming up with more policies with the Home Affairs Bureau to encourage matchmaking.
He added mainland Chinese authorities also had similar policies encouraging matchmaking taking place in parks and public space.
Professor Ernest Ng Hung-yu, the former head of the division of reproductive medicine at Queen Mary Hospital, told the Post earlier that extending the freezing period would have little effect on tackling the city’s low birth rate because there was no real demand for a storage period of more than 10 years.
Ng explained that most people who stored reproductive material would use them within four years.
