Privacy, transparency clash in debate over bill on artificial insemination

Japan Times

15-04-2025

Lawmakers are on the cusp of kicking off deliberations on a bill introducing legal provisions on the right to know one's genetic origins for children conceived through artificial insemination by donor (AID), raising the thorny question of when they can access donor information, and to what extent.
The assisted reproductive tech bill, submitted to the Upper House on Feb 5 by lawmakers from four parties — the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, its coalition partner, Komeito, and opposition parties Nippon Ishin no Kai and the Democratic Party for the People — will become the first piece of legislation covering donor information since the country's first AID procedure was performed in 1948.
The bill stipulates that donor-conceived individuals, upon turning 18, may have access to information concerning the height, blood types and ages of the donors. The disclosure of additional information requires the permission of the donors.
Information about donors, donor-conceived children and their legal parents will be archived for 100 years by the National Center for Child Health and Development (NCCHD), the bill stipulates.
The bill has drawn criticism from some donor-conceived people. Over 1,500 such individuals were born between 2007 and 2022, the latest data from the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology shows.
'The right to know one's genetic origins belongs to the child. So, the children should get as much information as they want when they want it,' Sachiko Ishizuka, 45, who was born via AID, told lawmakers from the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan on April 9.
She learned at 23 that she was fathered by an anonymous sperm donor at Keio University Hospital in Tokyo.
Doctors told Ishizuka's parents to never tell anyone, including their child, that they used a sperm donor because AID was an admission of male infertility — a taboo that was best kept secret.
Donors, many of whom were medical students at the time, were also told to keep their contributions a secret. With many having families of their own, they are hesitant to step out of the veil of anonymity.
'Secrecy does more harm than good,' said Ishizuka, who struggled to forgive her parents for concealing the truth from her for so long.
Unfiltered transparency, however, may drive donors away.
Ishizuka, 45, learned at 23 that she was fathered by an anonymous sperm donor at Keio University Hospital in Tokyo. She struggled to forgive her parents for concealing the truth from her for so long. |
Shigeru Yamada
Donors have already withdrawn from sperm donation, according to Keio University Hospital, which was Japan's top medical institution for AID procedures until 2018 — when it stopped accepting new patients due to a lack of donors.
About 2,000 AID procedures were performed nationwide in 2022, more than a thousand fewer than a decade earlier, according to the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
'(Donors) couldn't continue at the risk of encountering legal issues in the future,' Kurumi Kano, a spokesperson for the hospital, said.
The bill under deliberation would allow donors to volunteer more anonymized information without compromising on their privacy, Komeito Upper House lawmaker Kozo Akino has said on the party's website. The bill names the NCCHD as a potential mediator between donors and their offsprings.
'(The bill) balances the need to secure donors and protect children's rights,' Akino said.
Some data shows that there has been a shift in the priorities of medical professionals in Japan — from maintaining secrecy to protecting the right of donor-conceived children to know their genetic heritage.
A 2024 survey of obstetricians and gynecologists at 375 medical institutions conducted by professor Mikiya Nakatsuka at Okayama University found that 83.5% believed the right should be protected.
In other countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands as well as some Australian states, laws have been enacted to grant donor-conceived children access to donor identity. In Austria, donor-conceived children as young as 14 have the right to access the names and dates of birth of their biological parents.
Ishizuka argues that the bill 'undermines' the right of a person to know one's genetic heritage by leaving it up to donors to decide whether to disclose information about themselves to the children.
'How can you say that a child's right (to know their genetic heritage) is protected when someone else has the final say?' she said.
The assisted reproductive tech bill has also drawn criticism for excluding unmarried and same-sex couples from conceiving using donors.
Lawmaker Akino said that if same-sex couples, who cannot legally marry in Japan, receive AID treatments, it could raise questions about the donor's parental rights — an issue that requires further deliberation. Criticism has been raised against the punishments outlined by the bill for medical institutions violating this exclusion — imprisonment of up to a year, a fine of up to ¥1 million ($6,972), or both.