Abstract
In Japan, although there have been many requests from many quarters to legislate medically assisted reproduction, deliberations in Parliament are still not making much progress. Reports have been issued by two bodies, i.e., the "Special Committee for Medically Assisted Reproduction," "the Health Sciences Council for Evaluating Advanced Medical Techniques" of the former Ministry of Health and Welfare, and the "Sub-Committee for Medically Assisted Reproduction" Health Sciences Council of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, released in 2000 and 2003 respectively. At present, it is clear that medically assisted reproduction techniques which were not authorized by the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology have been carried out, such as "posthumous reproduction", "surrogate conception," etc., and they have now become significant problems. The problem of "a child's right to know about his/her origins" also ranks with "surrogate conception" as a major discussion topic in this field. In this paper, we survey the state of "posthumous reproduction," "surrogate conception," and "a child's right to know about his/her origins" in Japan, from the viewpoint of legislation practiced overseas.
