Essay
"AID, Sperm Banks, and Their Problems
in Japan and in the U.S."
Date: July 13,
2000
Introduction
Chap.1 AID, Its Merits, and Its Demerits
1.1 What Is AID?
1.2 Merits of AID
1.3 Demerits of AID
Chap.2 The Reality of AID and Sperm
Banks 6
2.1 The Origin and Concrete
Examples about AID in Japan
2.1.1 The Origin and
Spread of AID in Japan
2.1.2 The Case of One
Hospital in Japan: Hara Medical Clinic
2.1.3 The Case of One
Sperm Bank in Japan: Excellence
2.1.4 The Difference
Between Two Institutions
2.2 Concrete Examples in the
U.S.
2.2.1 One Special
Case: Cryobank (Called “Novel Bank”)
2.2.2 One Judicial
Precedent: One Trial Between a Donor and His Child
2.3 Different Points Between Two Problems
Chap.3 Problems about AID in Two
Countries
3.1 The Possibility of The Consanguineous Marriage
3.2 A Mounting Risk of Children's Becoming Orphans
3.3 Donors' Ignorance of Their Responsibility for Their Children
3.4 The Discrimination against Persons Born by AID
3.5 To Accelerate the Differentiation of Two Classes
3.6 Children's Shock When They Know the Secrets of Their Birth
Chap.4 Conclusion and Thoughts 13
4.1 Conclusion
4.2 My Thoughts
Appendix
Table 1: "A LIST OF CHARGES AND REQUIREMENTS
Bibliography
In
these days there are many sperm banks and many kinds of them in the world,
especially in the U.S. and other developed countries, including Japan. AID is
also used in those countries. However, there are few people who seriously think
of the possibility that many problems about sperm banks or AID will happen. I
worry about that condition, so that I decided to research this topic,
"AID, Sperm Banks, and Their Problems in Japan and in the U.S."
This essay consists of 4 chapters. Each
chapter has each interesting point. Chap.1 will explain AID itself. Chap.2 will
show you the concrete example of AID and sperm banks. Chap.3 will explain some
problems about AID. Chap.4, the final chapter, consists of the conclusion and
what I thought of AID.
This essay also contains an appendix, one
table that shows you the price of sperms. If you are interested in this table,
please have a look at it.
Chap.1 AID, Its Merits, and Its Demerits
1.1
What Is AID?
AID is not the AIDS (this word is the
abbreviation for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), but the
abbreviation for Artificial Insemination by Donor. AID is one of methods
used in hospitals or sperm banks as the methods of treatment for infertile
couples, but doctors normally use AIH (this word is the abbreviation for Artificial
Insemination by Husband) not AID. This is because when doctors use AID,
they must use the sperms of other persons who are donors. To use the other
persons' sperms means that the children born by AID have problem, for example
their real fathers ("real father" means genetically right father in
this essay) aren't their mothers' husbands, but donors of sperms. Of course
this problem leads to more problems, but now you should look at the reality
about AID and after that, you return to those problems with more knowledge about
AID.
1.2
Merits of AID
Why do some people use AID when they want
to have children? The answer is easy to understand, and this shows us two main
merits of AID. Firstly, for the infertile couples (in this essay this word
means the couples whose husbands are only infertile, their wives have no
problem), AID is the only way for them to have couples. Because of sperms'
infertility of husbands', they can't use AIH, so they have no choice but to use
AID (now more better way are invested, being tested or developed, but AID is
still the best and popular way) but they can have their children. This is the
first merit of AID.
Second merit of AID is that single women
can have their own children more easily than before. In the case of single
women, sperm banks are the only suppliers of sperms used in AID because AID in
hospitals is used only for the infertile couples, so they must use the sperms
of sperm banks' donors. Without AID and sperm banks, they must associate with
men or got married with them in order to have their children. However, they can
give birth to their own children by AID without men. They can also decide when
they give birth to their babies and what kind of babies they give birth to.
That is why AID is very useful for single women who want their own children.
1.3
Demerits of AID
One main demerit of AID is, already
described, that the real fathers of children born by AID are equal to donors,
not to their mothers' husbands. On the other hand in AIH, this problem can't
happen because his mothers' husbands are the donors so that this demerit is
unique for AID. That is why almost all of the problems about AID result from
this demerit. These problems will be explained at chap.3, so please wait at a
moment.
Chap.2 The Reality of AID and Sperm Banks
2.1
The Origin and Concrete Examples about AID in Japan
2.1.1 The Origin and Spread of AID in Japan
Where and when AID started in Japan? The
answer to this question is very interesting for us because this answer is very
unexpected. The first time when AID started in Japan is in 1949, more than 50
years ago and the first place where AID started in Japan is the Keio University
Hospital. The history of AID in Japan is very long and honorable.
Of course many children have been born by
AID since 1949. In Japan, since 1949 until about 1990 more than 10,000 babies
have been born by AID (7,000 of them born at Keio University Hospital) and the
number of babies born by AIH is much more than that of AID.
2.1.2 The Case of One Hospital
in Japan: Hara Medical Clinic
The case of Hara
Medical Clinic, stand in Tokyo, is very interesting. All donors of Hara Medical
Clinic are the students of medical department of some universities, and more
than 80% of them are the students of medical department of Keio University. Why
they provide their sperms? There are many reasons, for example, to help
patients as doctors in the making, to think of this as the donation of their
blood, and so on. However, main reason is just one thing, money. They receive
more than 20,000 yen per one pack of their sperm. This revenue has an
attraction for them, because the students of universities always need or want
money.
In Hara Mental Clinic clients are limited
to married couple and they have no freedom to choose donors. Why are there such
regulations? This is because the opposition of the Ministry of Welfare
and the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology. These type of AID is
not illegal, but they violate the “standard” of the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology their
pressures are so strong that Hara Medical Clinic decided to avoid any risks as
far as they can. (In Japan the standard of medical society is like law, and
very powerful) If a doctor went against that standard in more and more times,
he might lose his license of doctors in the cause of standard of medical
society.
2.1.3 The Case of One Sperm
Bank in Japan: Excellence
The case of
excellence is different from that of Hara Clinic. In Excellence the clients
aren’t limit to couples, but single
women also use the sperms of its donors. Clients can also have the freedom to
choose the sperms that will become their children’s fathers. They can choose not only by looking at the catalogs
of donors, but also by meeting donors, so that Excellence is the special sperm
banks. Usually clients of normal sperm banks have the freedom to choose donors
only by looking at the catalogs of donors. This methods looks better for the
clients than previous ones, but newer problems will arise, for example the over
concentration of few donors, the development of love emotion between a client
and a donor, and so on. (In the case of AID the relation between a client and a
donor shouldn’t be close, so they must not
meet each other.)
2.1.4 The Difference Between
Two Institutions
The main difference
between two cases is obvious. In Hara Medical Clinic AID is used for the
infertile couples as an ultimate treatment, On the other hand in Excellence AID
is used for single women as a useful method. In Japan the case of hospitals are
popular, but the case of sperm banks will become more popular and at the same
time more problems will appear. This is why to think of the difference in AID
between two countries is important and will get another important topic.
2.2
Concrete Examples in the U.S.
2.2.1 One Special Case: Cryobank (Called “Novel bank”)
Cryobank is a special sperm bank and very popular
as Novel Bank. Why it's called so? The reason is that the all donors of
Cryobank are intelligent persons including Nobel Prize winners. This is proved
by the I.Q. (Intelligent Quotient) tests. The scores of almost all of
them are more than 130. (The average score of normal persons are less than 100)
Cryobank makes much regulation in order to
limit the number of single women who want to use AID by those sperms. This is
because Cryobank needs to keep the quality of clients' children, more
concretely, their good intelligence. Nobel Bank is the brand name like Louis
Vuitton.
There's an interesting example about this
sperm bank, the case of one boy born by the sperm of its donor. His name is
Doron. His IQ score is more than 200 and he doesn't have the Savan Syndrome.
(Savan Syndrome consists of two factors, intelligence handicaps and
extraordinary ability. This syndrome can be often found among geniuses)
That is, he is a perfect genius born by AID.
The case of Doron shows us that the sperms
of geniuses can make new geniuses, such as Doron. This
possibility leads to the problems of new type, for example the problem
described at chap. 3.5.
2.2.2 One Judicial Precedent:
One Trial Between a Donor and His Child
In 1989, in order to get any kinds of
information about his father's gene and to cure his hereditary disease led by
his father's bad gene, Brittany Johnson filed a suit against his real father,
who was the donor of sperms and hadn't met Brittany. In the process of that
trial, he won one time, but finally he lost the case because the court judged
that the contract made between his father and mother also applied to him, so
that he can't get his father's identity.
This case shows us the possibility of the
complex problems about babies born by AID in the future. The problem of this
type will be explained at Chap.3.3
2.3 Different Points between
Two Problems
In
Japan, of course married couples can use AID, but single women can't because,
it was already described in this chapter, the Ministry of Welfare and the Japan
Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology object to single women's use of AID. On
the other hand, in the U.S. single women as well as couples can use AID. This
difference is obvious.
This difference leads to another
difference between two countries. This is the difference in the number of the
sperm banks. In U.S. there are more than 150 sperm banks, but in Japan there're
less than 10. In Japan, sperm banks are still rare.
Chap.3 Problems about AID in Two Countries
In this chapter, six problems about AID
are listed.
3.1
The Possibility of the Consanguineous Marriage
It's possible that a man and a
woman who have the same father, who is the donor of sperm, marry because they
don't know and can't know any information about their father. It's known that
babies born in the consanguineous couples have more likely to have some disease
or disorders, so this is a serious problem.
3.2 A
Mounting Risk of Children's Becoming Orphans
This problem is only true of the single
women who want to have their children by AID. For those children, their parents
are always only mothers, so if mothers died or got unable to work before
children can work as labors, they become poor and can't live by themselves. In
normal family the death of one parent don't always the crisis of this family
(at least my case is true of this) but in this family, single-mother family
made by AID, the death of one parent always means children become orphans.
3.3
Donors' Ignorance of Their Responsibility for Their Children
Normally donors of sperms can't imagine their children's future and they
don't know their real role they should play. For their children born by AID the
donors are their real fathers, but for the donors their children are just strangers
though they are fathers. This difference between donors and their children in
the thoughts of their relation will cause more problems like the case in
chap.2.2.2 will happen
3.4 The Discrimination against
Persons Born by AID
Where do persons born by AID live in
Japan? No information about them is reported though more than 10,000 persons
born by AID exist and there's too much information in Japan. The reason is that
they are very afraid of the discrimination against them. You may think this is
wrong, but in Japan there're many kinds of discrimination and Japanese who have
the possibility to have discrimination, such as Burakumin (one type of
discriminated persons in Japan), Ainu, tend to cover their origins, so
discrimination is invisible.
Of course this is true not only of Japan but also of other countries,
such as the U.S. so that this problem is particularly serious.
3.5 To Accelerate the
Differentiation of Two Classes
The more time passes, the better technologies will be developed. However
all people not always use those technologies. The first group who can use them
is the rich group, because new technology cost much money. This can be true of
AID. In the case of AID, rich persons can have their own children who have much
intelligence, good appearance, tall stature, and no hereditary disease by
spending much money on excellent sperms of geniuses and new genetic
technologies. However, poor persons can't use such technologies and have their
ordinary children. If this pattern existed in the real society and continued in
some generations, what would happen? One probable result is that the emergence
of new class society dominated by few rich persons. This may be too fantastic,
but it's possible. That is why this problem is very serious, particularly for
the poor persons, like me.
3.6 Children's Shock When They
Know the Secrets of Their Birth
If you were suddenly told that your father
wasn't real father because you had been born by AID, what would you do? The
answer may depend on each person's character, but normally you would be
shocked. Some may try to commit suicide; other may start domestic violence.
This type of problems, the mentality of
children born by AID, is likely to be overlooked, but this problem is also a
serious problem.
Chap.4 Conclusion and Thoughts
4.1 Conclusion
From chap.3, we can recognize that now AID
is the popular way to have children and there're many problems about AID, but
effective solution to those problems haven't been found until now. This is why
we have to turn our eyes to AID and to find the solutions to those problems.
4.2 My thoughts
I dislike the sperm banks because they
didn't consider the persons born by AID and they gain profit by trading sperms,
the sources of humans. But it's true that some people need AID because they can
never have their children without AID. This is why just to say" No sperm
banks, no AID" is stupid, I think. We must have the objective view to
judge what is right.
Now the scientists in the world rapidly
developed genetic technology so that to prohibit the sperm banks or the use of
AID is impossible because this become more outdated as the time passes. This is
why, what is important about AID is not which right or wrong AID is, but what
is needed to solve the questions about AID. In this essay the solution isn't
described, but this doesn't mean that to solve the problems is impossible. The
problems will be more serious, because the number of people born by AID will increase
as AID and sperm banks spread, so we should start thinking of the solution to
the problems in order to see the hopeful society in the future.
Appendix
Table 1
"A LIST OF CHARGES
AND REQUIREMENTS ABOUT
SPERM BANKS AND
HOSPITALS"
|
|
Excellence |
Hara Medical
Clinic |
Cryobank (Nobel bank) |
One normal bank in the U.S. |
|
Fees per 1 pack of
sperms |
\50,000 |
\40,000 |
$1,500～$3,000 |
About $150～200 |
|
Donors' rewards per 1
pack of sperms |
\30,000～\40,000 |
\20,000 |
Less than $1500 |
About $50～100 |
|
Donors' types And requirements for
donors |
Persons who can be
husbands' double, have good characters, and good appearances |
Students of medical
department of Keio Uni. or other
famous universities |
Persons whose IQ score
are More than 130 |
Nothing special
(persons who have no hereditary disease) |
|
Requirements for their
clients |
Nothing special |
Married couples |
Women who are very
intelligent |
Nothing special |
(my
original)
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