A well-known university hospital in Tokyo has stopped taking appointments from couples seeking one type of fertility treatment, due to a fall in the number of anonymous sperm donors.
Keio University Hospital explained that fewer donors were willing to participate once they were made aware of the spreading global recognition of the right of children to know their biological parents.
Called artificial insemination by donor, the treatment usually treats couples where the man is infertile. The woman is artificially inseminated with sperm from an anonymous donor.
Mamoru Tanaka, an obstetrics professor at the university who oversees the treatment, noted that if Japan recognizes donor-conceived children's right to know their biological origins it could lead to cases in which they effectively have two fathers.
"It is crucial to establish through legislation a safe and comfortable donor system," he said.
The university hospital has been offering this type of fertility treatment since 1948, conducting around 1,500 procedures per year.
The hospital used to take patient appointments as early as one year before providing the treatment, but stopped doing so in August. It will discuss the treatment's future in a meeting also involving outside experts in October.
