Obstetricians' and Gynecologists' Opinion on Surrogacy in Japan: The Successful Use of Human In Vitro Fertilization...

This study confirmed opinions on surrogacy conducted by obstetricians who were affiliated with a university in the 1980s, based on the clue that a child was born using human in vitro fertilization (IVF) in 1983. This research also examined the question of why Japanese obstetricians limited the target population for IVF to legally married couples and excluded women (wives) who had undergone total hysterectomies. The women's movement has criticized the gender discrimination that occurred in IVF. Obstetricians had predicted the advancement of human IVF, and that it would raise legal and ethical issues regarding this form of surrogacy. Around this time, there was a lawsuit known as the Fujimi Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital Case, which exposed the realities of performing a total hysterectomy after an unjustified diagnosis. It was believed that obstetricians had obstructed the normal sequence of events in which a patient selects surrogacy after undergoing a hysterectomy.