Ecuador: Bishops and activists warn about assisted reproduction law

In Ecuador, the Catholic Church and various provident activists have warned about the dangers presented by the Assisted Reproduction Bill which is currently in process to be discussed in the plenary of the National Assembly.

In 2018, A judgment of the Constitutional Court He ordered the National Assembly to adopt the necessary legal provisions to regulate the medical procedures of assisted reproduction.

The judgment forced the National Assembly to present the legislation within a period not exceeding one year. However, it was until August 2024 that the Ombudsman presented the document.

At the beginning of July 2025, the Ombudsman in charge, César Córdova Valverde, He supported the legislation before the Commission of the Right to Health and Sports of the National Assembly.

According to Córdova, The objective of the proposal It is “to guarantee the right to sexual and reproductive health” and “establish a regulation of assisted reproduction techniques under criteria for security, efficiency and unrestricted respect for human rights.” The parliamentary commission reported that it will continue to receive observations in order to prepare a first text for plenary discussion.

“It is dangerous from any look”

Estela Zea de Furlato is a catechist and co -conferadora of various movements as yes to life and babies in the hearts of Jesus and Mary. In an interview with ACI Press, the activist said that, beyond the Catholic point of view, the bill “is dangerous from any look, because she does not respect the principle of the best interest of the child.”

“Many Catholics do not realize that in vitro fertilization (IVF) are often murdering their children on their way. They do not realize the manipulation of embryos, which are voluntarily and also eliminated, often, often unconsciously,” said Zea de Furlato.

“When legalizing the project, this unconsciousness is accentuated,” he added. The activist recommended that legislators carefully read the bill that, as he says, contains serious contradictions.

“A woman is not free during the nine months that her belly rents. Rent beams are usually given in limited women, due to economic need. It is very sad and very painful to think that the human body can become a contract object, as if it were merchandise,” said Zea de Furlato.

The approval of this legislation, he said, would represent a great danger to all children in Ecuador, because all the Ecuadorian child protection system puts at risk.

The Catholic Church warns about the dangers of assisted reproduction

At the end of July, Mons. Cristóbal Kudlawiec, Bishop of Daule and President of the Episcopate’s life and family commission, He published a statement In which he recalled that assisted reproduction techniques pose “serious moral problems related to the respect that human being deserves from the moment of his conception, as well as with the dignity of the person, his sexuality and the transmission of life.”

The document also denounces that these practices require “forming and destroying innumerable human embryos” and that many others are frozen, which “constitutes an offense to respect due to human beings.”

“Every human being must always be welcomed as a gift and blessing of God. However, from the moral point of view, it is only truly responsible, for whom it is to be born, the procreation that is the result of marriage. Any technique of procreation that involves a complete dissociation between procreation and the conjugal act is intrinsically illegal,” says the statement.

Mons. Kudlawiec asked the state authorities to put at the service of the rights of all citizens, “particularly who is weaker.”

“The political authority, therefore, cannot authorize that human beings are called to existence through procedures that expose them to the serious risks mentioned above,” he added.