In the past two days, the British government has just amended a new law:
Sperm and egg donation is permitted for people living with HIV who are "not infectious."
The purpose of this new law is to give same-sex couples who are living with HIV the opportunity to have their offspring.
In July 2023, the authoritative medical journal The Lancet published a paper.
Roughly speaking, scientists have found that under existing antiretroviral therapy (ART), the risk of HIV infection is almost zero, even if people living with HIV engage in unprotected sex!
(Research paper on "U=U")
Translated, as long as the level of the virus in a person with HIV is too low to be detected, then the virus cannot be transmitted to others through sexual activity.
And from this was born a famous formula:
“检测不到=不传染”（undetectable equals untransmittable, 简写为U=U）
This conclusion has been widely recognized in the medical community, and more and more scholars and institutions have begun to support the concept of "U=U".
The concept of "U=U" soon influenced the field of fertility medicine, and more and more fertility experts began to support it:
People living with HIV who are "U=U" are allowed to donate their own germ cells (sperm or eggs).
However, at that time, the official British legal regulations for this act were quite strict:
Only men living with HIV are allowed to donate their sperm to their female spouses, but not to anyone else.
(Official British propaganda about "U=U")
The latest amendments to the law become:
Regardless of whether you are living with HIV or gender, you can donate sperm or eggs to family, friends, or even informed recipients as long as you meet the "U=U" criteria!
In other words, past laws on germ cell donation for people living with HIV were only heterosexual.
If a same-sex couple living with HIV wants to have a child, their wish cannot be fulfilled.
After all, in most cases, same-sex couples can only get a child of their own by donating sperm to a "voluntary surrogate" woman, supplemented by in vitro fertilization (IVF) technology.
The previous law clearly stipulated that sperm can only be donated to opposite-sex couples, which is tantamount to stifling the possibility of gay husbands getting biological children...
("U=U" Sperm Donation)
Now that this obstacle will no longer exist, under the new revised law, homosexual couples and women living with HIV will have the opportunity to have a child of their own if they can find a woman who is willing to help have a baby.
A typical case is:
A "U=U" couple and a "U=U" couple are voluntarily paired, and the two families have a child for each family through sperm donation/egg + IVF.
Public Health Secretary Maria Caulfield commented:
"The revision of this law will allow more couples to realize their dreams. We are also amending this law to give more equal rights to people living with HIV. ”
（卫生部长Maria Caulfield）
Despite the official rhetoric of the United Kingdom, the problems and loopholes in the new law cannot be ignored.
Many media have summarized the problems:
The first is that "U=U" is quite difficult to implement.
For example, people living with HIV need to undergo long-term, regular antiviral therapy, and they also need to go to the hospital regularly to make test reports.
Secondly, the "not infectious" in "U=U" refers specifically to the fact that it is not transmitted during sexual activity, and does not include mother-to-child transmission or blood-borne transmission, and the public may not be aware of the details.
Finally, once the sperm/egg donation of "U=U" HIV carriers is released, a number of gray groups and industrial chains may be bred for surrogacy and childbirth of HIV carriers....
In the final analysis, in the face of infectious diseases, we should be more cautious in formulating laws...