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With the initiative, we make abortion more accessible and safer: The deputy of the Civil Contract Faction Narek Zeynalyan said, presenting the legislative initiative authored by him and his colleagues Lusine Badalyan, Tatevik Gasparyan and Lena Nazaryan.

According to the Chair of the Standing Committee on Health Care Narek Zeynalyan, in the current legislation, abortion is allowed only in hospital conditions with instrumental methods. According to the deputy's observation, in line with the development of modern medicine, there are medicines that can be used to carry out harmless termination of pregnancy.

"According to the instructions of the World Health Organization (WHO), medical abortion is allowed up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, but since this regulation is new for us, sufficient experience must be accumulated, we decided to lower the above-mentioned threshold, predicting that medical abortion will be possible at 8 weeks of pregnancy." – the rapporteur underscored.

According to Narek Zeynalyan, the age limit of persons having the right to use assisted reproductive technologies has been raised to 55 years old.

The package regulates the process of using the surrogate mother service. The age limit for becoming a surrogate mother was also revised, increasing it from 35 to 38 years old.

Provisions have been added regarding the storage, export, import and destruction of gametes.

The Committee members welcomed the initiative aimed at improving the demographic situation.

According to the RA Deputy Minister of Health Armen Gasparyan, the adoption of the initiative is due to the need to bring a number of regulations into line with the current legislation and international approaches. The Government made proposals that were accepted by the authors.

The initiative included in the draft agenda of the extraordinary session of the National Assembly to be convened on July 11 at the proposal of the RA Government was debated at the extraordinary sitting of the Standing Committee on Health Care on July 8 and was endorsed.