Couples looking to start a family naturally want their own children. But amid the recent debate over whether to legalize surrogate births in Japan, one question has largely been overlooked: What about adoption?

Without a doubt, there are many children without parents who need loving families, but adoption of unrelated children is rare in Japan, partly because of doubts that placing them in an unfamiliar home environment is better than raising them in a public welfare facility.

Temporary foster care, in which families agree to care for a child for a few weeks or even several years without becoming the legal parents, is not common either.