Liza Diers on Japanese Television

Our clinic founder, Liza Diers, and her family have been featured on Japanese television news.

Liza, along with her wife Lise and their three children, was part of a news segment covering the topic of LGBTQ+ discrimination in accessing fertility services in Japan.

Nippon Television, which produces nationwide Japanese news programmes watched by 10-13 million viewers, contacted Liza.

They wanted to present the Danish fertility system to their viewers and highlight the lagging legal system in Japan.

The intention was to showcase how the Danish system works as an inspiration to update the Japanese system.

Barriers for LGBTQ+ couples and single women in access to fertility treatment

In Denmark, fertility treatment with sperm donation is accepted for single women or LGBTQ+ couples, as well as heterosexual couples.

However, in Japan, the new law is set to accept fertility treatment only for heterosexual couples in marital relationships. LGBTQ+ couples and single women in Japan would not be able to have children through fertility services.

Fertility discrimination must be spotlightet

Liza is happy to bring attention to the obvious discrimination issues in access to fertility services that both LGBTQ+ people and single women experience in Japan.

My family and I feel grateful and proud to be a living example of how the Danish system works. However, at the same time, it shocks and saddens me to learn how far behind the Japanese fertility system actually is.

Liza hopes that the inclusive and non-judgmental fertility treatment system we take for granted in Denmark becomes available in Japan in the future.

If my family’s story could help make at least a small difference in reversing the trend in Japan, I would be delighted. But to be frank, it does not seem to have progressed much further over the last decades in terms of lesbian and single women’s opportunities to start a family.

Watch the news segment that was broadcast on two news programmes on Japanese television. You can enable automatically generated English subtitles in the YouTube settings menu.