Woman Puts Baby Up For Adoption After Finding Sperm Donor Lied About Ethnicity, Education

A woman in Japan is giving up her baby and suing her sperm donor after discovering he lied about his ethnicity and educational background.

The woman, identified as a married 30-year-old from Tokyo, has sued the sperm donor after finding out he was Chinese, not Japanese. She has asked for 330 million yen ($2.86 million) in compensation for emotional distress, VICE reported.

The woman has also alleged that the man lied about his education and had not graduated from Kyoto University, and was married, not single as he claimed, according to Tokyo Shimbun.

The woman had decided to seek out a sperm donor after finding out that her husband carried a hereditary disorder that could be passed on to his offspring.

After hooking up with the donor via social media in March 2019, they had sex 10 times before the woman, who was not identified, successfully got pregnant three months later.

By the time she knew of his true identity, it was too late to abort the baby, and she has since given up the child for adoption.

The child was handed to a Tokyo child care facility and put up for adoption after birth while the couple filed a lawsuit from the donor for fraud and emotional distress.

The woman's lawyer on Tuesday said she suffered from sleeping disorders and was physically and emotionally traumatised by the whole experience - especially because of the backlash generated by her decision to give up the child.

But Mizuho Sasaki, a child welfare worker in Japan, branded the woman 'shallow'. “It’s unacceptable to treat the child like an object,” she told VICE.

“But I think it’s better to leave the kid with someone who can be a good foster parent," she added.

The woman said she had filed a lawsuit against the man last month because she wanted to stop him potentially targeting other people.

Sperm donations in Japan are virtually unregulated because artificial insemination clinics are rare and only open to married women, excluding single women and LGTBQ+ people.