Photo/Illutration A hospital room for auxiliary reproductive medicine in Israel (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

A broad coalition of lawmakers on Nov. 16 submitted a bill to the Upper House to establish legal parentage for couples who conceive a child through assisted reproduction using a donated egg or sperm. 

Five ruling and opposition parliamentary groups--the Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito, Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Social Democratic Party, Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) and the Democratic Party for the People--launched the lawmaker-initiated legislation.

They are seeking to establish a law in the current Diet session to clearly define the parent-child relationship for such cases by an act on special provisions of the Civic Code.

In the existing Civic Code, a pregnancy and a childbirth involving a third party outside of a married couple is not envisioned.

Under the proposed law, when a woman receives an egg from a third party as part of a fertility treatment, the woman who gives birth to the child will be legally recognized as the child’s mother.

When a wife undergoes fertility treatment and conceives by sperm donated from a man who is not her husband, the husband who consented to the procedure will be legally recognized as the child’s father.

The lawmakers expect the bill to help lessen the number of legal issues associated with filiation.

The lawmakers have included a supplementary provision in which they say the government will decide within the following two years how to define these children’s right to know their biological parent, along with the issue of filiation through surrogacy.

The lawmakers also pointed out that issues related to the auxiliary reproductive medicine and egg and sperm donation business need to be discussed.

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