A 30-year-old Japanese woman has given up her baby and sued her sperm donor after finding out that he had lied to her about his ethnicity, marital status, and educational background.

Due to "right to know" laws in Japan, children of donors are legally able to identify the donor. This leaves many potential donors wanting to remain anonymous and so are forced to seek alternative methods of donation. It also has a knock-on effect of making it more difficult for couples and individuals to find donors.

One of those methods is searching for donors on social media which is unregulated. The woman and her husband wanted to try for a second child but unfortunately discovered that the husband had a hereditary condition. They took to social media to find a potential donor.

The woman found a sperm donor in his 20's who claimed that he graduated from a top Japanese university, that he was Japanese and that he was single. The woman chose this potential donor and reportedly engaged in sexual intercourse with him 10 times until she became pregnant in June 2019.

Later on, she found out that he had lied about himself. The donor was a Chinese national who was married and did not graduate from the top Japanese university. By the time she knew of his deceit, it was too late to have an abortion and she gave birth to the baby. The baby is now in a child care facility in Tokyo.

In a first for Japan, the woman is suing the donor for $2.8 million for emotional distress. She claimed that he lied about himself in order to engage in sexual intercourse with her. In an attempt to combat the issue of unregulated sperm donors, the Mirai Life Research Institute opened the country's first sperm bank over the summer.