開催報告

開催報告【International IGS Seminar】

Data Reporting as Care Infrastructure: Feminist Approaches to ART Registries● Date/Time:

July 16, 2020, 12:15–13:45 (JST)/11:15–12:45 (CST)● Venue:

Online (Zoom Webiner)● Presenter

Chia-Ling WU(Professor, National Taiwan University)

Presentation title:“Data Reporting as Care Infrastructure: Feminist Approaches to ART Registries”● DiscussantAzumi TSUGE (Professor, Meiji Gakuin University)●Moderator

Yukari SEMBA (Project Research Fellow, IGS, Ochanomizu University)●Language

English (Consecutive interpreting in Japanese)● Number of Attendatees: 64
Abstract
The purpose of collecting clinical data on assisted reproductive technology differs among Japan, Taiwan,and South Korea. In Japan, the purpose is to provide safe medical care and advance medical care; therefore,
the collected data include clinical results, the problematic cases that occurred during pregnancy andchildbirth due to assisted reproductive technologies (infertility treatments), the number of multiple birthcases, and the disabilities of neonatal infants. In Taiwan and South Korea, the main purpose of clinical datacollection is to show the high level of their reproductive medicine technologies, and they only paid attention
to the number of live births. In Taiwan and South Korea, many multiple embryo transfers have been
conducted, and a high success rate has been achieved, but reports on the multiple embryo transfer rate,
multiple births, and the incidence of disabilities are not available. By comparing the three countries, theideal form of clinical data as a care infrastructure was demonstrated.
ReportThe Institute for Gender Studies (IGS) held the first IGS international online seminar on July 16, 2020,
using a Zoom Webinar. We invited Professor Chia-Ling Wu of National Taiwan University, and she gave apresentation titled Data Reporting as Care Infrastructure: Feminist Approaches to ART Registries. After her44

2020 年度 IGS 国際セミナー（生殖領域）
第 1 回 7 月１６日（木）ケアのインフラストラクチャーとしての臨床データ報告：
生殖補助技術（ART）の臨床実施成績の登録に対するフェミニストアプローチ

presentation, Professor Azumi Tsuge of Meiji Gakuin University made comments, and we had a Q&A session
with the participants. Dr. June-Ok Ha, a senior curator of the National Museum of Korean Contemporary
History in South Korea, joined us from South Korea for the discussion after Professor Tsuge's comments,
because she is a research collaborator of Professor Wu. Sixty-four people from Japan and abroad participatedin the seminar because we arranged Japanese–English consecutive interpretation. One quarter of the people
who signed up for the seminar was from Taiwan, South Korea, and the United States.
Professor Wu has been interested in women's reproduction and newborns by assisted reproductive
medical technology (ART) from a feminist point of view. She has conducted research regarding the collection
and analysis of clinical data of ART in Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea with Professor Tsuge and Dr. Ha.
They published “Data Reporting as Care of Infrastructure: Assembling ART Registries in Japan, Taiwan, andSouth Korea” in an academic journal, East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal(14, pp.35–59) in 2020. In this seminar, she talked about whether the data collected by each country wereused for the care of women who are considering infertility treatments or becoming pregnant by ART andabout newborns and their other research findings. How the data related to ART have been used for thedevelopment of evidence-based policies regarding ART practices and promoting the interests and health ofwomen and offspring were also discussed.
In Japan, the ART clinical data have been collected by the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology(JSOG). Most of the fertility hospitals and clinics have reported their clinical results for the report, publishedby JSOG annually, to promote safe ART and medical progress. The report is open to the public, and theproblematic cases and complications of women who used ART during their pregnancy and childbirth and theincidence of multiple births and impediments can be observed. In Taiwan and South Korea, the ART clinicaldata are collected by the governments and not open to the public. The purpose of data collection in bothcountries is to demonstrate domestically and abroad their high level of ART. Therefore, they have tended tofocus on the birth number, and the problematic cases are not collected. In addition, the rate of multiple births
and concomitant medical problems are not provided, despite many multiple embryo transfers having been
implemented at a high success rate. Prof. Wu argued that Japanese ART data collection is functioning well
as a care infrastructure.
After Prof. Wu's presentation, Prof. Azumi Tsuge briefly introduced the background and current situationof Japan's ART data collection and disclosure system and then asked questions about and made comments on
Wu's presentation. Tsuge first said that using clinical data of ART as infrastructure for care is a relevant
approach. In Japan, the JSOG takes the lead in publishing statistics on ART data, and although each clinic is
not mandated to report ART data, most ART facilities report the data voluntarily. In Taiwan, ART statistics
collection is led by the government, and the law regulates data reporting by medical institutions. Tsuge's firstquestion was what are the advantages and disadvantages of the infrastructure of ART data statistics by agovernment and regulating the reporting by law. Wu answered the question as follows. The advantage is thatdata collection is thorough in a nation, and the disadvantage is that fertility clinics and doctors report only
the mandatory data to the government because of a top-down approach. Thus, there is insufficient

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開催報告

Tsuge also argued that ART risk governance has improved in Japan because infants' risks suchas increased births of ultra-low weight infants are more paid attention to than the risks to infertile womenand that the judicial cases of ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome (OHSS) affected the collection of OHSS
data. Thus, she thought that the feminist approach had limitations in the construction of Japan's ARTstatistics. Her second question was what was essential in practicing the feminist approach in theconstitution of ART statistics. Wu replied that the statistics should not be used for merely showing thehigh level of ART in the countries; it should be used for making ART safer for women and infants.
Therefore, Wu answered that many people with diverse positions including feminist activists and parties
should be involved with policymaking on ART.
The participants had many questions and comments from participants, and we actively discussed theissue.

Reported by SEMBA Yukari
Project Research Fellow, IGS, Ochanomizu University46