Japan jerks its sperm banks around

By Ryann Connell
November 28, 2004

Sperm banks in Japan have long held a reputation for, well, seediness, but it seems red tape and prudishness have stopped the Japanese jizz biz from going through the growth spurts it has witnessed in other parts of the world, judging by Cyzo.

An average 170 children a year are born after being conceived through a process called AID, or Artificial Insemination with Donor semen, according to the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

But frequent attempts to set up Japanese sperm banks have nearly all gone to seed, including one that collapsed last month after a promising start but eventually ended up being little more than a waste of seed money.

Japan has finally permitted and created a system to deal with sperm donors, but businesses dealing with the male reproductive fluid have yet to come to terms with operating conditions in this country.

"Japan lacks clear laws on the use of sperm in AID and guidelines issued by Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology are effectively the standards. However, these standards insist that the donor must be an anonymous third party and forbid the trade of sperm for commercial purposes," a writer on the medical industry tells Cyzo. "With these restrictions, the sperm business is unable to comply with the requests of women who are looking for a particular type of gene. That's apparently what led to the establishment of private sperm banks. I don't know for sure, but I've heard that it's not rare for the cost of getting pregnant through one of these places to run into the millions of yen."

A company that set itself up on the Internet in 1996 as "Japan's first sperm bank" actually charges a basic fee of 1.5 million yen. On top of that, it also adds several other minor charges and bills for all expenses. The monthly says that the price of pregnancy is certainly not cheap.

Yet, it notes that sperm banks in the United States are flourishing despite charges that run into the 10s of millions of yen, precisely because they allow sperm or ova recipients to dictate the precise types of looks and physical and mental abilities that they're searching for.

If Japan allowed this kind of trade to exist, the magazine says, surely it would become a viable business proposition, even if it did go against the non-binding guidelines drawn up regarding the conduct of the practice.

"That may well be the case, but I think this would be a bit difficult for Japanese," the writer tells Cyzo. "Physicians really active in the AID field are already opposed to the idea of carrying it for profit and it's hardly likely women beset with worries about being infertile are going to be willing to seek help from companies that have to slink around operating in a gray zone."

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