Mess over surrogate mothers
(From The Japan Times October 21 issue)

代理出産に国民的議論を

    But reality is leaping ahead of the guidelines. Advances in fertility medicine are likely to lead to an increase in the number of surrogate births. Legislation is necessary not only to avoid legal troubles but also to protect the welfare of the children.

    More than 100 Japanese couples are believed to have had children through surrogate mothers in the United States and other countries. Among them are TV personality Aki Mukai and her husband Nobuhiko Takada, a former professional wrestler, whose case has gained public attention because the case involving their twin boys is now before the Supreme Court.

    Most couples who have had children via a surrogate procedure have reportedly registered them in Japan by telling the local governments concerned that the wives went abroad while pregnant and gave birth there. But in the case of Mukai and Takada, Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward did not accept their request to register their twin boys because it knew the true circumstances surrounding their births. The couple had made public their use of an American surrogate mother. Through books, TV and a blog, the couple described their struggle to have children through a surrogate mother, including Mukai's loss of her womb and baby because of uterus cancer and the painful process of having her eggs extracted.

    The Tokyo High Court recently ruled in favor of the couple, scrapping a family court decision that sided with Shinagawa Ward. Noting that if the twins were not recognized as the couple's children in Japan, the children's stateless status would continue, the high court ruling said that priority must be put on the welfare of the children. But Shinagawa Ward has appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.

    The news about the woman in her 50s serving as a surrogate mother for her married daughter came from a maternity clinic in Shimosuwa, Nagano Prefecture. The daughter and her husband, in their 30s, sent an e-mail to the clinic that said the daughter's mother had offered to give birth for the daughter, who had had her cancerous womb removed. The clinic performed in vitro fertilization using the daughter's eggs and her husband's sperm and implanted the fertilized eggs in the womb of the daughter's mother. The child was born in the spring of 2005.

    The child was first registered as the birth mother's child and later was adopted by the daughter and her husband — like other cases of births using surrogate mothers in Japan. Biologically, the child is the offspring of the daughter and her husband. But the facts surrounding the birth may cause some people to view the child as both the daughter's child and sibling.

    The Nagano clinic has been involved in five surrogate births. The first birth — also the nation's first — was disclosed in May 2001. In two cases, sisters became surrogate mothers.

    Some states in the U.S. accept births through surrogate mothers even if fees are paid. But European countries such as France and Germany prohibit births through surrogacy while Britain accepts them if payments are not involved.

    The April 2003 guidelines of the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology prohibit doctors from taking part in procedures for births through surrogacy whether they use the eggs and sperm of married couples or the eggs of surrogate mothers and the sperm of husbands. Around the same time, a health ministry panel issued a report that prohibits such births but calls for the enactment of a related law.

    Reasons for the prohibition cited by the medical society include: Surrogacy ignores natural ties between mother and children that are naturally formed through pregnancy and birth and runs counter to the welfare of children; surrogate mothers may undergo unbearable physical and psychological burdens; surrogate mothers may refuse to hand over children; married couples may refuse to accept children if they differ from their expectations (deformity, diseases, etc.); and surrogacy may turn surrogate mothers and children into commodities if payments are involved.

    Enacting an optimum law in a short time to solve the problem may not be easy. As a first step, public debate is needed to help people understand what problems surrogacy poses in terms of bioethics, social values and family ties.

The Japan Times Weekly: October 28, 2006
(C) All rights reserved

    テレビタレントの向井亜紀さんと元プロレスラーの高田延彦さん夫婦も、代理母を通じて双子をもうけ、話題となった。東京・品川区役所は夫妻が提出した子どもの出生届の受理を拒否した。向井さんはガンのため子宮を摘出しており、通常の出産は不可能のため米国人の代理母を利用したことをテレビ、ブログなどで情報公開していた。

    家庭裁判所も区役所の決定を支持したが、東京高裁は夫妻の立場を支持する判断を下した。区役所は最高裁に控訴、判断が待たれている。

    娘夫婦の卵子と精子を使って50代の女性が代理出産していたことは、長野県下諏訪町のマタニティー・クリニック院長が明らかにした。卵子と精子を体外受精させ、受精卵を母親の子宮に移植、子どもは05年春に生まれた。母親の実子として出生を届けられた子どもは、後に娘夫婦と養子縁組をした。このクリニックは、01年以来5件の代理出産を取り扱ったという。

    米国の一部の州は、代理出産を無条件に認めているが、独仏などは禁止している。英国は、無報酬の場合に限り認めている。日本産科婦人科学会が代理出産を禁止しているのは、自然の摂理を無視したものであり、代理母が出産した子どもの引渡しを拒否したり、報酬をめぐり代理母と子どもが商品化する可能性があるなどの理由だ。

    必要な立法措置を講じる前に、代理出産の問題点について国民的議論が必要である。