Abstract
The Donor Conception Review Committee of the Science Council of Japan concluded in March 2008, that surrogacy both with and without compensation should be prohibited in principle in Japan, albeit with possible exceptions for research purposes. However, it is unlikely that problems related to payments to surrogates can be eliminated simply by prohibiting commercial donor conception. If surrogacy for research purposes is permitted on a merely exceptional basis in Japan, issues regarding payments will undoubtedly remain. In this paper, I first give an overview of the current status of surrogacy in Japan and other countries and then go on to describe the details of a specific surrogacy case in California and the content of the 2008 Declaration of Istanbul on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism. Finally, I discuss issues relating to the payment of reasonable expenses and reimbursement for surrogacy. Based on this discussion, I find that in the absence of a clear definition of "reasonable expenses," there is little difference between payments for commercial surrogacy, as in the U.S., and those for non-commercial surrogacy, as in the U.K. The Declaration of Istanbul explicitly discriminates between comprehensive reimbursements of the actual costs of live organ donation, as opposed to payments for an organ. It might be useful to apply a similar distinction to surrogacy by discriminating between the cost of surrogacy and the actual sale of women's or infants' bodies. In conclusion, we need to clearly specify the nature of "reasonable expenses" in order to prevent money-related disputes regarding surrogacy.
