A committee of the Science Council of Japan has made public a draft report that calls for enacting a law to ban surrogate births in general. Since surrogate births include ethical, legal and medical problems, medical service people, experts in ethical problems, health authorities and lawmakers should present these problems in a comprehensive manner so that a public consensus can be built on the issue.

In doing so, it will be particularly important to protect children born through surrogate births from discrimination and a number of possible social inconveniences. Yet, if too much time is spent on building the consensus, some women who cannot become pregnant and their husbands will likely seek help from surrogate mothers anyway.

The health ministry and the Justice Ministry had asked the council, an independent body under the prime minister, to compile the report. A wide range of people including medical doctors, biologists and legal experts joined the discussions.