Opinion

Making babies

By Scott T. Hards

I remember learning in elementary school that when a man's sperm cell and a woman's egg joined together the resulting cell would start to divide and grow into their baby. This is reproductive science at its most basic.

Unfortunately, after the display by the Shinagawa ward office in Tokyo recently, it would seem that many of Japan's public servants were never taught this information.

Aki Mukai recently had twin boys with the help of a surrogate mother in the United States. Mukai had cancer, which left her without a uterus, making it impossible for her to carry a baby. So instead, eggs taken from her body were joined with her husband's sperm, and the fertilized eggs were placed in the uterus of another woman. Nine months later, this woman gave birth. It was a joyous moment for a couple who had no other way to have children of their own.

But when they tried to register the birth in Japan, the ward office refused to accept the documentation, as Japan's laws say that the baby's mother is the woman who actually delivered the two boys.

Japan's bureaucrats are still trying to run a 21st-century country with 19th-century (or earlier!) laws. Of course, until recently, the woman who gave birth to a child was always its biological mother, too. But when surrogate-parent technology emerged, why didn't this law get changed? Or why cannot they make exceptions? At least 100 Japanese couples have had children through surrogates so far, and all of them were forced to register their own biological children as being adopted, a perverse insult to both parents and children.

Of course, there are some concerns about whether surrogates are a wise idea. The Health and Welfare Ministry is against it, which was why Mukai had to travel to the United States. One reason they give for banning it is that there's no "social consensus" on the issue. But who needs social consensus? If the parents and the surrogate all agree, who are we to tell them no? It's their lives. If the process is carefully regulated, it can be a powerful tool to help otherwise childless couples get the kids they so badly want.

This issue interests me deeply. In 1978, the first "test-tube baby" was born in England, and there were similar fears about that new technology. But today, it has helped millions of couples get the kids they want.

Just a few weeks ago, on Jan. 30, my wife gave birth to a little girl. Like Louise Brown 25 years ago, my daughter was also conceived "in vitro." Thanks to modern reproductive technology, I am now a proud father despite my wife's blocked fallopian tubes! Nevertheless, until this year Japan's health insurance offered no coverage for reproductive difficulties, and even now, the benefits are a tiny fraction of the total cost (usually over ¥500,000).

Japanese are having fewer babies than ever, and social planners say this spells trouble for Japan's future. Some regional governments have even implemented programs to encourage people to have kids. So why is Japan's medical establishment and national government turning its back on the very people who are the most desperate of all to bring new life into the world?

Shukan ST: Feb. 20, 2004

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