Article: Clinics defy guide on IVF treatment

[Mikawa Ossan]

quoted from www.asahi.com/english

Clinics defy guide on IVF treatment

04/30/2007
BY AKIKO OKAZAKI AND KENJI TAMURA THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

A medical ethics panel acting for a group of infertility clinics has approved the use of eggs donated by a patient's friend or sister for in vitro fertilization (IVF).

The panel authorized the controversial treatment plans at two clinics in late March. Should the plans go ahead, the clinics would be the first in Japan to carry out the treatment under specified procedures.

The Japanese Institution for Standardizing Assisted Reproductive Technology (JISART), which represents 20 infertility clinics, created the panel to consider ethically complex issues. The institution is expected to make a formal decision on the issue at a June board meeting.

The panel's decision, which runs counter to a health ministry panel report that recommended use of only eggs from anonymous donors in IVF treatment, is certain to draw heavy criticism.

The member clinics of JISART, which was founded four years ago, carry out nearly half of all test-tube fertilization cases in Japan.

At the two clinics in question, officials say the only way the patients can give birth is by using donated ova--and that it is almost impossible to find anonymous donors.

In 1998, Yahiro Netsu, head of the Suwa Maternity Clinic in Nagano Prefecture , sparked controversy by announcing that he had successfully carried out such a treatment.

He said a woman had given birth to twin boys through in vitro fertilization using sperm from her husband and eggs from her younger sister.

The incident, combined with a separate controversy over surrogate motherhood, prompted the ministry panel to study the issue as a step toward new legislation.

In its report in 2003, the panel approved the use of donated eggs on the condition that donors remain anonymous.

However, it said that sisters should not be allowed to provide ova. The panel said that using eggs from a sister could complicate family relations, as the genetic mother would remain close to the couple and child.

It was also concerned that sisters of infertile women could come under undue pressure to donate their eggs.

The ethics panel of the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology agreed that ova should only be donated on condition of anonymity.

The JISART panel decision fails to meet that condition. The panel said it would be very difficult to find an anonymous third-person donor.

"We feel we cannot wait (for legislation) any longer," a JISART board member said.

Moves for legislation have been slow since the ministry panel released its report. The Science Council of Japan only began considering it in January.

While efforts to create a legal framework continue to stall, infertile couples are increasingly resorting to surrogate births and other practices, most of them covertly.

Opposition to ova donation itself is persistent, as the procedure to remove eggs carries risks to the donor's health.(IHT/Asahi: April 30,2007)

Copyright The Asahi Shimbun Company. All rights reserved.

 

[Goldiegirl]

I guess I don't understand...is there some kind of problem with using a friend or relatives egg to get pregnant? I think that's better than a complete stranger. If a woman wants to get pregnant and can't, I believe she should have the right to do just about whatever it would take to get pregnant. It sounds like the clinics are doing the right thing to me. I am tired so maybe I am just not getting the problem here....

 

[Mikawa Ossan]

In its report in 2003, the panel approved the use of donated eggs on the condition that donors remain anonymous.

However, it said that sisters should not be allowed to provide ova. The panel said that using eggs from a sister could complicate family relations, as the genetic mother would remain close to the couple and child.

It was also concerned that sisters of infertile women could come under undue pressure to donate their eggs.

This is the problem.

1) Who is the mother? The mother who gave birth or the biological mother? It sounds like a moot point, but imagine that the sister who donated the egg later decides that she wants custody of the child for one reason or another. What happens then? Reread the article: there is not a legal framework in place yet.

2) Women could be pressured to donate their eggs to their sisters even when they don't want to if this practice becomes commonplace. Social pressure can be an extremely stong force here in Japan.

 

[Elizabeth]

This is the problem.
1) Who is the mother? The mother who gave birth or the biological mother? It sounds like a moot point, but imagine that the sister who donated the egg later decides that she wants custody of the child for one reason or another. What happens then? Reread the article: there is not a legal framework in place yet.

I heard on NHK just the other week in fact of a conservative court decision that basically ruled the children of a Japanese celebrity and her American husband (I believe) who had been carried by an American surrogate mother did not have the right to Japanese citizenship. Their underlying justification : only the woman who gives birth can be proven beyond all doubt as the 'mother.' Since this was an American, that is where their nationality can be traced. Scary stuff. Sounds like a return to the days of ignorance before DNA and maternity testing.

 

[KirinMan]

I heard on NHK just the other week in fact of a conservative court decision that basically ruled the children of a Japanese celebrity and her American husband (I believe) who had been carried by an American surrogate mother did not have the right to Japanese citizenship. Their underlying justification : only the woman who gives birth can be proven beyond all doubt as the 'mother.' Since this was an American, that is where their nationality can be traced. Scary stuff. Sounds like a return to the days of ignorance before DNA and maternity testing.

Elizabeth here is the link to the story you are refering to;

No Registry for pair born to surrogate

The decision by the top court's No. 2 petty bench finalizes Shinagawa's rejection to register the births of the boys, now aged 3, to TV celebrity Aki Mukai and former professional wrestler Nobuhiko Takada. The children thus do not have Japanese nationality.

This may be a bit off topic here but here is a story of where the courts here would not recognize the dead father as the parent of the child.

Sometime after he died the woman used the sperm to fertilize one of her eggs and in 2001 gave birth to a boy. She tried to have the baby's name registered in her koseki as the son of her and her late husband, but local authorities rejected it. According to the Civil Code, a baby born more than 300 days after the end of a marital relationship does not qualify as a baby born of that relationship.

From this link Paternity Suit

With laws like these it is no wonder that the birth rate here in Japan is dropping.

 

[Mikawa Ossan]

Yes, this brings up some interesting issues I wasn't thinking of when I posted this article!

According to Japanese law, the woman who gives birth to a child is the legal mother. Motherhood is not decided through genetics but rather who does the actual birthing of the child.

The law concerning fatherhood is more complex, but mostly irrelevant to this topic (in the OP, although I'm more than willing to discuss it as well!)

This may have to change some day due to advances in medicine and the phenomona of surrogate mothers. But what I find fascinating is that there are mechanisms for the father to disavow fatherhood of the child, but there are no mechanisms for the "mother" to do so. That means that legally, the woman who gave birth to her own grandchild did no such thing. She gave birth to another daughter! The best that the genetic mother could do is legally adopt her own genetic child, who is legally her sister!

 

[Mars Man]

This is also a very interesting subject area, with so many offshoots. I am fairly aware of the cases which have been presented--one famous one coming from up here in Suwa--yet I have not looked over all the details.

If I were to kind of shoot from the hip, I'd say that governmental bureaucracy, having more of a conservative lean, is dragging its feet. The ethical issues should be discussed and understood in light of increments in knowledge that have occured over, especially, the last 10 years or so.

Let's see what happens.

 

[Goldiegirl]

When you donate your eggs you lose "ownership" of them. This is so different from when a woman carries a child that isn't hers biologically and gives birth to it...that's hard, to hand over a life that's been inside of you. Eggs that are fertilized and implanted in another woman is less an issue...for me as a woman. I am not in love with, or emotionally attached to an egg. It only becomes life when joined with a sperm and grows in the womb. If it's not my womb, it's not my child. I would know that there is a life out there with my DNA, but similar DNA doesn't create love or attachment. I don't get what all the fuss is over. It's so simple and yet governments and greedy people can find a way to make this so hard and overly complicated. You donate your eggs and that's it...no big deal here.