India-born baby to meet Japanese dad
Wed, November 05 2008
Manji Yamada was born in July after eggs from an unknown donor were fertilized using her Japanese father’s sperm and implanted in the womb of an surrogate Indian mother.
Her biological father, Ikufumi Yamada, 45, divorced his wife after the fertilization process and his former spouse no longer wants the baby.
With Indian law disallowing the adoption of a girl by a single father, Manji’s fate was hanging in the balance until Indian authorities issued her an identity certificate enabling her to travel last month.
This paved the way for the Japanese embassy to issue her a visa and “now Baby Manji will be with her father this weekend,” Ikufumi’s friend, Kamal Vijayvargiya, said by phone from the western Indian city of Jaipur.
“Baby Manji and her grandmother Emkio Yamada have left for New Delhi from where they will take a flight for Japan,” said Vijayvargiya, with whom the two have been living since August.
The case, which made headlines in India, has brought calls for regulation of the country’s booming surrogacy business.
Surrogate mothers are often poor women opting to carry a stranger’s baby to help pay education and housing costs for their own families.
Gujarat’s Anand town — where Manji was born — has emerged as India’s surrogacy centre after the high-profile case of a woman who gave birth to her own grandchildren on behalf of her British-based daughter in 2004.
Surrogate mothers in Anand charge around $2,500 for a pregnancy and have been approached by a number of overseas Indian and foreign couples who can have a surrogate baby at a fraction of what it would cost in Western countries.
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