A Japanese woman has given up her baby for adoption and suing the sperm donor after finding out that he lied about his marital status, ethnicity and educational background.
The woman, who has only been identified as a 30-year-old woman from Tokyo, said she and her husband wanted to try for a second child but began looking for a sperm donor through a membership exchange site (SNS) after they discovered he had a hereditary condition.
Donor Said He was Single, Japanese and Graduated from a Top University
The woman found a sperm donor in his 20's on social media who claimed he graduated from one of the top universities in Japan and that he was Japanese. He also told the woman he was single.
The woman and donor reportedly had sex with the woman 10 times in order to get pregnant and in June 2019 the two successfully conceived, Tokyo Shimbun reported. However, she later discovered that the donor was actually a Chinese national who was married and did not graduate from Kyoto University as he claimed.
By the time she learned this information, it was too late to perform an abortion and she gave birth to the baby, who is now in the care of a Tokyo-based child care facility.
The woman is now suing the donor for about 330 million yen ($2.8 million dollars) for emotional distress, claiming the donor gave her inaccurate information just to have sex with her.
Japan's Black Market for Sperm
In Japan, sperm donations are practically unregulated. The entire country has just one commercial sperm bank and artificial insemination by a donor – a procedure that involves inserting sperm into a person's uterus - is only limited to married couples, thereby excluding single women and LGBTQ couples. Even for those eligibile, only a mere 12 hospitals in the entire country provide such fertility treatment.
The entire country of 126 million has just one commercial sperm bank, which was only founded in June. Artificial insemination by donor—a procedure that involves inserting sperm into a person's uterus—is limited to married couples, thereby excluding single women and LGBTQ couples. Even for those eligible, a mere 12 hospitals in the entire country conduct such fertility treatment.
Japan also has "right to know origin" laws that enable children of donors to legally be able to identify their biological father. This makes it very difficult to attract potential sperm donors who desire to remain anonymous.
These limitations have forced many Japanese people to look for alternative ways of obtaining sperm, creating an underground black market with many of the transactions taking place on social media.
