A Japanese woman in her 50s gave birth to her own grandchild last year, using an egg from her daughter and sperm from her son-in-law, a doctor has revealed. Both the mother and child were reported to be in good health.It was the first time a woman has acted as a surrogate mother for her daughter in Japan. She had agreed to in vitro fertilisation and to act as a surrogate mother because her daughter had had her uterus removed due to cancer and so couldn't bear her own children. The woman first registered the baby as her own and then the child was adopted by her daughter and son-in-law.
The case is set to stir debate in Japan where surrogate births are opposed by the government. Japan's justice ministry also views the woman who gives birth as a child's mother - not the biological mother. This legal position has led a Japanese celebrity couple to go to the courts to try to win the right to register twins born to a surrogate mother as their own children. Their case is continuing.
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Yahiro Netsu, the head of the Suwa maternity clinic in Nagano, who has helped other couples to have children through surrogate mothers, called on the government and the medical authorities to review their stance against surrogacy.
Surrogate births involve removing an egg to be fertilised and then implanting it in another woman who carries the baby to birth.
October 2006 |
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