The number of couples facing infertility has increased due to late marriage, and according to a 2016 survey, one in 18 people in Japan is born by in vitro fertilization.In addition, "surrogate pregnancy", which is one of the options when a woman who does not have a congenital uterus due to Lokitansky syndrome wants a child, has become technically possible, but it has many ethical and social problems. Not implemented in Japan for this reason.

　On the other hand, overseas, "uterine transplantation", in which a third party's uterus is surgically transplanted, is in the research stage. In 2014, a living donor reported that a living donor succeeded in giving birth by a uterine transplant from a brain-dead donor in Brazil in 2019, and more than 10 children have already been born in the world.In Japan as well, since guidelines for clinical research have been formulated, uterine transplantation may be conducted as clinical research in the future, but it also involves safety issues, ethical and social issues.

　Regarding uterine transplantation, there was a report that 20% or more were positive in a previous attitude survey of women in their 30s and 40s, but this time, those in their 40s and above who may be donors An awareness survey on uterine transplantation was conducted on 20 men and women aged 59 to 1600 to reflect the opinions of women and men.

　As a result of the survey, 36.5% and 31.0% of the respondents thought that uterine transplantation and surrogate pregnancy were socially "acceptable", and 17.0% and 19.9% ​​answered that they should not be accepted. Opinions exceeded negative opinions.The most common reasons for each were "uterine transplantation is a hope for patients with uterine infertility" for the affirmatives and "high risk of surgery for uterine transplantation" for the negatives.Answers are also known to be influenced by gender, age, infertility experience, and degree of knowledge about uterine transplantation, with higher levels of knowledge about uterine transplantation increasing positive opinions about uterine transplantation and at the same time denying it. The opinion did not change for women, but increased for men.

　On the other hand, more than 30% of all questions answered "I don't know."In order to obtain broader social consensus, it is desirable to provide knowledge and develop discussions on uterine transplantation.It was also suggested that surrogate pregnancy should be discussed at the same time as uterine transplantation.It is expected that this survey will lead to the creation of early rules to address future issues related to uterine transplantation.

reference:[University of Tokyo] Survey of domestic awareness of uterine transplantation, surrogate pregnancy, and adoption (PDF)
Paper information:[PLOS ONE] A survey of public attitudes toward uterus transplantation, surrogacy, and adoption in Japan