A Japanese woman has decided to give her child up and sued the sperm donor after discovering he had been lying about his ethnicity and education level.
The woman, a Tokyo citizen in her late 30s, is the mother of one child with her husband and wants another child. However, after learning that her partner suffered from a hereditary disorder, the woman looked for sperm donors on social media. The donor she selected claimed to be Japanese and had graduated from Kyoto University. The Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shimbun also stated that the woman had sex ten times with the donor to get pregnant.
However, in 2019, she learned the fact that the donor for the sperm was actually Chinese. He also lied about graduating from Kyoto University as well as the fact that he is a married man. When she learned about his real identity, the baby grew had already grown past the abortion age. She has since offered the baby for adoption. The woman filed a lawsuit against the donor of the sperm in December for the sum of 330 million yen ($2.86 million) to address emotional anxiety.
In Japan, Sperm donations in Japan are almost not regulated.
The entire population of 126 million people has only one commercial bank for sperm established in June. Artificial insemination through donor–a process involving injecting sperm into a female’s uterus is limited for married couples only, meaning single women and LGBTQ couples can’t undergo it. Only 12 hospitals across the nation offer this fertility treatment for those who are eligible.
The lack of choices causes many Japanese individuals to search for other methods of getting sperm. This has created an underground market, and most interactions occur via social media.
Misa is a lesbian who has used social media to locate a sperm donor and admitted the difficulty it took to find sperm in Japan. “But if this woman still wanted to go through with this underground process, she clearly didn’t understand that it would be at her own risk,” she said to VICE World News.
Japan is currently without laws that govern commercial egg and sperm banks. Since the absence of regulations, health institutions have guided artificial insemination practices since 1948.
However, access to this treatment is very restricted even for legally permitted couples to receive this treatment. Couples could also locate donors through international banks, such as Cryos, which serve more than 100 countries; however, these services are more expensive than local ones.
On the other hand, the sperm donation services of third-party advertisements on social media provide the possibility of a low-cost, sometimes even free, solution, despite health concerns and legal risks.
She gives for suing the donor because she wants to stop other women from being lied to while receiving sperm or selecting the donor. “In Japan, there is no public system or legal system for sperm donation,” her lawyer stated during an interview on Tuesday according to Japanese media outlet TBS News. The lawyer further noted that the woman had severe sleep issues and decided to give up her child, which has sparked public anger.
Source: Vice News
Also read about Struggle of Wanting A Family For A LGBTQ Couple In Japan