As part of an overhaul of reproductive-health policies, Azerbaijanis facing the double whammy of low incomes and infertility may soon be entitled to state-sponsored in-vitro fertilization.

With a population of just under 9.6 million, the largest in the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan already boasts the region's highest birth rate (an estimated 17.7 births per 1,000 people), but, apparently, more needs to be done.

If the law is adopted, "we want to conduct artificial insemination with public funds . . . for those who are in need of social support," said Musa Guliyev, deputy chairperson of parliament’s social policy committee and the bill's main sponsor, Azernews.az reported. Others may be eligible via mandatory health-insurance, he added.

Under a draft law on reproductive health, an Azerbaijani citizen will be considered legally infertile after a year of solid attempts to conceive prove futile, Biznesinfo.az reported.

The bill is being fine-tuned before it hits parliament for debate later this fall, added Guliyev, who represents the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party. 

Artificial insemination has been practiced in Azerbaijan since 2004 with a 40-45-percent success rate, higher than the European average, Azernews reported. Azerbaijani Muslim groups opposed the draft law earlier this year.  

But artificial insemination is not the only reproductive area Guliyev, a neurologist by background, intends to target.

The draft law also will require a medical commission to determine whether women seeking an abortion after the 12th week of pregnancy are doing so for "non-medical reasons," such as because the fetus is female, Al Jazeera reported last month.

Physicians practicing selective abortions would face the suspension of their medical license, fines and criminal prosecution, Guliyev said in late September, according to Azernews. "Because if the matter is not subject to administrative and criminal sanctions, only [community] outreach activities will be insufficient to prevent selective abortions," he asserted.