Are single women in China legally allowed to have children using artificial reproductive technology (ART)?

A leading Chinese civic education enterprise thinks so, according to an opinion piece that the enterprise, Plan C, shared with Caixin on Monday.

Current regulations are murky. ART services, which include artificial insemination, have traditionally been used to treat infertility among married couples.

A 2003 document regulating ART, meanwhile, says that the services can apply to married couples, but not to single women or couples whose reproduction activities don’t comply with family planning rules (e.g, couples who’d like to have a third child).

Plan C, however, believes that a different interpretation of the laws means ART can apply to single women.

China’s existing laws, including the 2003 ART regulations, offer space for interpretation, Plan C says – and they neither confirm nor deny the rights of single people to reproduce using ART (provided they are following other rules such as limitations on the number of births, of course).

Some official comments have already acknowledged this possibility – somewhat, anyway. In 2017, China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission said Chinese laws do not deny single women’s rights to give birth, thus leaving space for ART babies. Though the Family Planning Commission was technically dismissed in 2018.

China’s northeast Jilin province, for instance, said in a 2002 policy on family planning that “women with no children, having reached legal marriage age and deciding not to get married, can seek legal ART to have one kid.” The policy, Plan C writes, implies that ART does not conflict with China’s strict family planning policies.

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