Ova Brokers Remain Unchecked. Number of Births Resulting From In Vitro Fertilization Abroad Unknown
By Yomiuri,
The Daily Yomiuri
| 04. 30. 2012
Although Yomiuri Shimbun research indicates that at least 130 children were born to Japanese parents from 2007 to 2011 after their mothers received ova from donors overseas, the exact number is unknown because the firms that arrange the treatment are unregulated.
While an increasing number of women in Japan wish to provide ova for infertile couples, rules on the practice have not been established in Japan. This has led to a growing number of unregulated brokerages in Japan that mediate in vitro fertilization with donated ova overseas.
The brokerages introduce ova donors to couples who want to receive in vitro fertilization.
The husband's sperm is used to fertilize the donor's ova in vitro at medical institutions overseas, and the fertilized egg is implanted in the wife's uterus. The wife then returns to Japan and gives birth.
At an office in central Tokyo of a company brokering such procedures overseas, numerous photos of smiling Japanese women in their 20s are kept in thick files. They are ova donors, some of whom are Japanese women studying in the United States.
The files...
Related Articles
By Emma McDonald Kennedy
| 09.25.2025
In the leadup to the 2024 election, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to make IVF more accessible. He made the commitment central to his campaign, even referring to himself as the “father of IVF.” In his first month in office, Trump issued an executive order promising to expand IVF access. The order set a 90-day deadline for policy recommendations for “lowering costs and reducing barriers to IVF,” although it didn’t make any substantive reproductive healthcare policy changes.
The response to the...
Sir Francis Galton, 1890s, by Eveleen Myers (née Tennant)
npg.org
Public Domain via Wikipedia
As has been discussed in recent issues of Biopolitical Times (1, 2), there are, increasingly, companies that claim to be selling parents better babies by selecting the “best” embryos. These services don’t come cheap – think $50,000, or even more, for embryo testing, plus perhaps as much again for IVF and concomitant services. To most of us, that is extremely expensive...
By Margaux MacColl, The San Francisco Standard | 09.17.2025
Designer babies are coming soon to an IVF clinic near you.
Nucleus Genomics, founded by Kian Sadeghi in 2020, when he was just 20, got its start analyzing genomes to weigh a person’s risk of everything from cancer to ADHD...
By Marianne Lamers, NEMO Kennislink [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 09.23.2025
Een rijtje gespreide vulva’s gaapt de bezoeker aan. Zó ziet een bevalling eruit, en zó een baarmoeder met foetus. Een zwangerschap, maar dan zonder zwangere vrouw, gestript van zorgen, gêne en pijn. De zwangerschapsmodellen en oefenbekkens, te zien in de...