Panel Calls For Ban On Surrogacy

[Mulboyne]

[floatr][/floatr]Asahi: Panel recommends full ban on surrogacy
An advisory panel set up by the Science Council of Japan is recommending a ban on all surrogate births, including criminal penalties against anyone involved in surrogacy for profit. The advisory panel, set up at the request of the government, is to file a final report by the end of March. Panel members will urge the Diet to pass legislation along the lines of the recommendations. However, opinion among Diet members is widely split on the issue. In addition, with the Diet's upper and lower chambers controlled by opposing parties, the possibility of early passage of any such bill is doubtful, experts said. While guidelines from the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology ban surrogacy, they have not stopped clinics in Japan from conducting in vitro fertilization. A clinic in Nagano Prefecture has conducted many surrogate births, including one case in which a woman in her late 50s was a surrogate mother for her daughter. Some Japanese couples wanting children have also gone abroad to seek surrogate parents. The most famous case involves the TV personality Aki Mukai and her husband Nobuhiko Takada, a former professional wrestler...The committee's recommendations also indicated those who go abroad in search of surrogacy would likely also face penalties...more...

[Behan]

An advisory panel set up by the Science Council of Japan is recommending a ban on all surrogate births, including criminal penalties against anyone involved in surrogacy for profit.

I hope the babies don't have to do hard labor.

The committee's recommendations also indicated those who go abroad in search of surrogacy would likely also face penalties

Would they have jurisdiction over what goes on overseas?

Others questioned use of another person's body as a reproductive tool.
What are we humans if not this? Oh that's right, the stork brings 'em.


The committee also said debate should focus on possible exceptions to a ban on surrogacy, such as in clinical research conducted under central government oversight.
So are to take it that a childless couple could be jailed for having a surrogate baby but it's OK for the government to conduct research on surrogate babies?

[amdg]

I don't understand the objection(s). Can anyone clue me in?

[Iraira]

I guess this means that I can throw out those vials of "my little fellas" that I've been keeping in the back of the fridge next to the yougurt.

[Samurai_Jerk]

I guess this means that I can throw out those vials of "my little fellas" that I've been keeping in the back of the fridge next to the yougurt.

You won't have too. I got the munchies last night.

[Iraira]

You won't have too. I got the munchies last night.

That's ok, I still got a Kewpie bottle full of the mini-soldiers....anyone up for some potato salad?

[hundefar]

That's ok, I still got a Kewpie bottle full of the mini-soldiers....anyone up for some potato salad?

I'll toss it!

[Iraira]

I'll toss it!

We're hitting a new low tonight aren't we....Monday, ne.

[Socratesabroad]

I don't understand the objection(s). Can anyone clue me in?

Quoting my explanation from a previous thread:

The Japanese gov't does have logic it relies upon.

The Ministry maintains that under Japanese law, according to a 1962 Supreme Court decision, the woman giving birth is the mother. The Ministry has always been willing to give citizenship to such babies if their parents adopt them.
http://www.japanlaw.info/law2004/Japan_law_2004_surrogate_birth.html

In short, they fear the legal repercussions of allowing surrogacy. One point to remember is that in Japan citizenship is closely tied to bloodline rather than residence/location as it is in the West, and another is the lack of sufficient legal infrastructure (case law, lawyers, and courts) to handle a flood of surrogacy cases.

Lawmakers in Japan's conservative ruling Liberal Democratic Party have long opposed most fertility treatments because they fear legal custody battles and other possible repercussions for the traditional family unit.
http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/8899022.htm

Japanese pols are not completely insane. Conservative perhaps, but not insane. In short, they fear the legal repercussions of allowing surrogacy. One point to remember is that in Japan citizenship is closely tied to bloodline rather than residence/location as it is in the West, and another is the lack of sufficient legal infrastructure (case law, lawyers, and courts) to handle a flood of surrogacy cases.

A Ministry of Health and Welfare panel of experts came out against surrogate birth in its final report released last December, recommending that "a practice that uses women as reproductive tools should be banned." The panel proposed establishing a law that carries penalties within three years, and the government has begun seriously considering the issue with the aim of enacting such a law.

There are undeniably a great number of issues that accompany a birth involving a surrogate mother. As the pregnant woman is forced to bear most of the burden, how should the various risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth be handled? What should happen in the event that a surrogate mother becomes attached to the child to whom she gave birth and a dispute over parental rights develops? In its final report, the panel cited concerns over safety and the child's home environment as reasons for banning surrogate birth.
http://www.embjapan.dk/info/Japan%20...1/jb010601.htm

And summing up just the tip of the legal iceberg the J-gov't's hoping to avoid...

Yes, we want to encourage families but 1) families that are Japanese and 2) families that are cohesive.

Second point first, look at all of the legal strife over surrogacy in the West. Surrogacy brings with it a host of legal issues like parental rights from the start. Is the woman who donated an egg the mother or is it the woman who brought the child to term? And what if, as has happened numerous times in the West, the surrogate initially agrees to the birth but decides while carrying, after birth, or much later that she wants 'her child' back or even limited parental rights to visit the child? Is a child born of a surrogate from an egg of another the property of the first woman]

Plus, there's the added benefit of avoiding this:

Hawkins has already had seven babies for other couples and is now planning an eighth, making her the most prolific surrogate mother in Britain. While Hawkins, who has no children of her own, admits to getting “]http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article3216705.ece[/url]

[Mulboyne]

Canadian Press: Surrogate child custody case in limbo in India after Japanese parents divorce

The custody of a child born to an Indian surrogate mother and intended for a Japanese couple hangs in limbo after the pair divorced, a doctor said Tuesday. Ikufumi Yamada, 45, and his then-wife Yuki Yamada, 41, had signed a surrogacy agreement with Priti Patel in November. Commercial surrogacy has been legal in India since 2002 and the child born of such an agreement is then legally adopted by its biological parents. But Indian law does not allow single men to adopt, and since he divorced shortly before the baby was born, Ikufumi Yamada cannot adopt the 11-day old baby girl currently in a hospital in Jaipur city in western Rajasthan state, said Dr Sanjay Arya, the doctor looking after the child. Yamada's ex-wife no longer wants to adopt the child.

The surrogate mother has also left the child, who is now being looked after by Ikufumi Yamada's mother, Arya said. "The grandmother becomes very emotional when she is told that the child cannot be taken out of India. The legislators will have to find some solution for this," Arya said. Without adoption papers the baby girl cannot be issued a passport or leave the country, Arya said. Experts say commercial surrogacy - or what has been called "wombs for rent" - is growing in India. While no reliable numbers track such pregnancies countrywide, doctors work with surrogates in virtually every major city. The women are impregnated in-vitro with the egg and sperm of couples from all over the world who are unable to conceive on their own.

Surrogate mothers, often poor women with little education, earn between $4,500 and $5,000, plus all medical costs, for the service. Most couples end up paying the surrogacy clinic about $10,000 for the entire procedure, including fertilization, the fee to the mother and medical expenses.

[Mulboyne]