Suba North MP Millie Odhiambo and Homa Bay Town MP Peter Kaluma exchanged sharp personal remarks on the floor of the National Assembly during a dispute over delays facing legislative bills on reproductive health and fertility services.
The confrontation flared after Odhiambo protested procedural holdups by parliamentary committees in tabling the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Bill for debate. Pushing back against her objections, Kaluma challenged her persistence on the floor, remarking, “You can go and give birth if you want… who has stopped you?”
Odhiambo immediately retorted on the floor, “It is God who refused,” before expanding on the exchange in a subsequent public statement. Addressing her colleague’s comments, she noted, “Hon. Kaluma, it is the same God who gave you children that stopped me from having them.”
The dispute centers on the Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill, legislation Odhiambo championed to establish Kenya’s first legal framework regulating in-vitro fertilization (IVF), surrogacy, and fertility clinics. The proposed law aims to eliminate regulatory vacuums that leave couples navigating medical infertility vulnerable to financial exploitation and social stigma.
The floor exchange highlights the friction surrounding health policy in Parliament, where legislative efforts addressing reproductive rights, childlessness, and surrogacy regularly encounter conservative cultural resistance and procedural hurdles.
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