KIEV. The Ukrainian parliament has approved a regulatory change that will allow war dead to conceive posthumous children thanks to the preservation of their reproductive cells, the use of which had previously been prohibited. «The error has been corrected. The posthumous destruction of military biomaterials has been suppressed”, said parliament speaker Olena Kondratiuk on Telegram, “therefore starting now the state will store the reproductive cells of army men or women for free for three years following their death ».
Last week, parliament started the process to amend the law which prohibited the widows of fallen soldiers from using their relative’s frozen sperm through assisted reproduction techniques so as not to be left without descendants. Numerous women left without husbands, through social networks, petitions to the authorities and interviews with local media, had requested an amendment that would modify the law approved last November which regulated the financing by the State of procedures for the freezing of genetic material and assisted reproduction of soldiers of both sexes.
The text was conceived for soldiers who had lost their reproductive capacity due to wounds suffered on the front, but it did not recognize the right to paternity after death for fallen soldiers and required the destruction of the genetic material of those who had previously frozen it. “I am convinced that everyone has the right to decide for themselves what should be done with their reproductive cells in the event of death,” MP Oksana Dmitriyeva, who was one of the promoters of the amendment.
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