TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese obstetrician said
on Sunday he had helped two couples have babies through surrogate
mothers over the past two years, criticising moves by academics to make
the practice illegal.
Japan's obstetricians' association is opposed to births by surrogate
mothers and academics recently drafted a proposal for the government to
ban such births by law. A final report is due at the end of March,
according to media.
Yahiro Netsu, one of a handful of doctors to have helped couples have
children through surrogate mothers, said it was unfair to deny infertile
couples the chance to have children.
"It's ridiculous to force values on people, to not allow something that
has been agreed upon by two parties," Netsu, who runs a maternity clinic
in Nagano, central Japan, said by telephone.
"Couples should be given the freedom to choose."
Surrogate motherhood has amassed wide media attention in Japan in recent
years, in part due to a celebrity couple who had twin boys through an
American surrogate mother in 2003.
The family made headlines last year when it lost a case in Japan's Supreme
Court to have the boys registered in Japan. The
children have only U.S. citizenship and are required to carry
alien-registration cards.
Netsu, long known for defying the obstetrics' association and urging the
medical community to review its opposition to surrogate motherhood, said he
was currently helping another couple give birth through surrogacy.
He declined to give details on his patients, but said that prior to 2006, he
helped five couples have babies through surrogate mothers.
A government survey last year showed 54 percent of respondents were in
favour of allowing surrogate births, but academics have questioned the
health risks for both the surrogate mother and child, the Yomiuri Shimbun
newspaper said.
Netsu said he also helped an unmarried 60-year-old woman give birth to a boy
in December after she had gotten pregnant with an embryo created from
donated egg and sperm.
Netsu, whose clinic cared for her after other medical institutions in Japan
refused to see her, said the case showed that older woman were able to have
children as long as they were in healthy condition.
Late childbearing, defined by the World Health Organisation as involving
women over age 35, has been increasing in Japan as more women work and marry
at a later age.
