Articles labeled: japan

A Japanese couple who paid a surrogate in India (where the practice is still allowed) have divorced, and now the baby is stuck without a home due to legal problems.

Some countries and parts of the United States have banned surrogacy as a money-making venture, but India legalized it in 2002. Under the practice, infertile couples are matched with local women to carry babies for $12,000 to $30,000.

It’s a booming business, worth an estimated $445 million a year.

“Cheap mothers are available here. There is so much poverty. … It’s employment for them,” says Dr. Sadhana Arya with India’s Arya Hospital.

“You have treated the surrogate mother like an object, used her as a factory, produced something, given money for it.”

But, she says, the final product “is a live child.”

A 14-year-old in Japan killed herself by inhaling toxic fumes from mixing cleanser and laundry detergent. The fumes were so strong 90 people in neighboring apartments also became ill, with 10 needing hospitalization. It seems this girl’s death is part of an alarming trend:

The girl’s suicide Wednesday night was part of an expanding string of similar deaths that experts say have been encouraged by Internet suicide sites since last summer.

A 31-year-old man outside Tokyo killed himself inside a car early Thursday by mixing detergent and bath salts, police said. A local police spokesman refused to give further details, but Kyodo News agency reported the man put a sign reading “Stay Away” on the car window.

At a business hotel in Shiga prefecture in western Japan, a man in his 30s was found dead Thursday morning by employees who noticed a strange smell coming from his room, according to national broadcaster NHK. Shiga police said officials are investigating the incident as a case of suicide by hydrogen sulfide gas but could not elaborate.

Reports of another similar death emerged Thusday afternoon when the body of a 42-year-old woman in Nagoya, central Japan, was found in a bathtub. According to Kyodo, there was toilet cleaner and bath powder nearby, along with a sign outside that read, “Poisonous gas being emitted. Caution.”