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Latest Surrogacy News
Searching for the Stork
A TV
personality's struggle to have children puts hard light
on Japan's conservative health-care establishment
BY
TOKO SEKIGUCHI | TOKYO
Time December 15, 2003
It's hard to be against motherhood, but
Japan, a country with a falling birthrate, may have
found a way. When television variety show host Aki Mukai
and her husband, former professional wrestler Nobuhiko
Takada, announced the birth of their twin boys last
Tuesday, they drew fresh attention to the country's
restrictive law surrounding surrogate mothers. Due to a
41-year-old Supreme Court ruling, Mukai, 39, can't be
registered as the twins' biological mother, because the
couple used a surrogate to give birth; to be recognized,
she must legally adopt the twins.
Mukai, whose bout with
cervical cancer three years ago left her unable to bear
children, has been a prominent crusader against the
stigma Japanese society attaches to infertile couples.
Her and her husband's struggle to become parents was the
subject of a TV documentary, and their story has been
adapted as a TV drama, both of which were broadcast
earlier this year. "I want women to know that if the
stork doesn't come to them, they can go search for their
stork," Mukai said last year.
Despite technological
advances that makes surrogacy safer and more reliable,
Japan's conservative health-care establishment remains
against it, partly out of fear that some women might
become for-profit baby factories. "For safety and
welfare reasons, the human body should not be used as a
tool for reproduction," said Tomoko Kashiwagi of the
Health Ministry. The Japan Society of Obstetrics and
Gynecology opposes the practice in part due to the
potential for "complication of family relationships."
The ministry, meanwhile, is pushing for an outright ban.
Women with reproductive dysfunction, says Kashiwagi, may
simply "have to give up on biological children."
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