A woman whose child was born to a surrogate mother in 2003 in Japan has urged the government not to ban surrogate births under a proposal advocated by an academic panel.
"Don't erase the final option for women who have no womb and thus cannot bear children," the woman in the Kanto region said in a rare interview. "This is an issue with pros and cons, but I want people to know that a child born through surrogacy grows safely and the family lives happily."
A panel of the Science Council of Japan, an independent academic forum that makes policy recommendations to the government, held a meeting Jan. 18 and discussed a draft report calling for a ban on surrogate births via establishment of a new law.