A family court on Friday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a man who sought to reject a parental relationship with his child as his estranged wife was impregnated without his consent using fertilized eggs stored by a clinic. 
 
 The Nara Family Court found that their marriage was not completely destroyed when the woman was pregnant, signaling that a Civil Code provision saying "a child conceived by a wife during marriage shall be presumed to be a child of her husband" should be applied. 
 
 The case has drawn attention as a modern-day family relationship problem amid an increase of in-vitro fertilizations. In general, the court said the consent of a husband for the transplantation of frozen fertilized eggs is needed in determining the father-child relationship. 
 
 The 46-year-old foreign man filed the suit with the court in October last year seeking to confirm that he has no father-child relationship with the now 2-year-old girl. But his then wife, whom he later divorced, argued during a trial that there are no legal grounds for the man to deny his paternity in these circumstances. 
 
 The plaintiff expressed disappointment over the ruling, saying in a statement that similar problems could occur, and be perpetrated by people who lack a sense of morality, without laws to regulate the issue. He plans to appeal the ruling, according to his lawyer. 
 
 According to the lawsuit and other sources, the couple, who got married in 2004, began fertility treatment in 2009 and their eldest son was born in November 2011 through the transplantation of a fertilized egg. The couple, however, separated in October 2013. 
 
 In 2014, the woman underwent another procedure to transplant a fertilized egg, which had been preserved in a frozen state before the couple's separation. She delivered a baby girl in April 2015 before she and her husband divorced in October 2016. 
 
 But Presiding Judge Masamichi Watanabe said the man was still spending time with the woman and their eldest son when her second child was conceived, and that their relationship was still that of a husband and wife at that time. 
 
 The plaintiff's lawyer Hideki Kono said the man behaved in that way because he did not want to disappoint his eldest son by fighting with his mother. The plaintiff was "regretting that the visits and exchanges worked against him," Kono said. 
 
 The man has also filed a case seeking 20 million yen ($178,000) in compensation from the woman and the clinic involved, claiming he has suffered mentally from the incident. 
 
 The clinic said earlier in a statement that it had assumed the transplant had both parents approval because the couple did not request the disposal of the eggs. 
 
 In Japan, many couples seek reproductive treatment, such as in-vitro fertilization, with more people marrying or having children late. There were about 420,000 cases in 2015 and one in 20 babies was born with the help of so-called assisted reproduction technologies. 
 
 But critics say the country needs to set more rules regarding such births. The Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology calls for medical personnel to seek the consent of the couple for each use of frozen fertilized eggs, but the actual handling of such matters is left up to hospital staff. 
 
 © KYODO ||||| Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The girl, now aged two, was born without her father's consent or knowledge (Stock image) 
 
 A Japanese court has ruled a father legally responsible for a child who was born after his ex-partner impregnated herself with a frozen embryo without his knowledge. 
 
 The man conceded he was the biological father of the two-year-old girl. 
 
 But he disputed his legal paternity status because he had no say in whether she would be born. 
 
 Although the couple had separated a year and a half before the girl was born, they were still married. 
 
 The man had already fathered a son by in-vitro fertilisation with his then-partner. 
 
 After the couple split, the mother then chose to become pregnant with a frozen embryo. 
 
 The man filed a lawsuit in an attempt to void the parental relationship. 
 
 But the court in Nara Prefecture ruled that, under Japanese law, the husband is presumed to be the father if the wife falls pregnant during the marriage - and the fact that they were separated did not matter. 
 
 The Japan Times reports that clinic staff told the court they assumed both parents consented to the second pregnancy, because they had not requested for the frozen embryo to be disposed of. 
 
 The couple have since divorced. ||||| A family court on Friday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a man who sought to reject a parental relationship with his child because his estranged wife was impregnated without his permission using fertilized eggs stored by a clinic. 
 
 The focus of the trial was whether a Civil Code provision saying “a child conceived by a wife during marriage shall be presumed to be a child of her husband” should be applied to the latest case, which has drawn attention as a modern-day issue amid an increase of in vitro fertilizations. 
 
 The Nara Family Court judged that based on the Civil Code, the 46-year-old foreign man was in a position to be presumed the father based on the relationship with his now ex-wife at the time of her pregnancy. 
 
 In general, the court said the transplantation of fertilized eggs requires the consent of both parents. 
 
 The man filed suit with the court in October last year seeking to confirm that he has no father-child relationship with the now 2-year-old girl. But his ex-wife argued during the trial that there are no legal grounds for the man to deny his paternity. 
 
 According to the lawsuit and other sources, the couple, who got married in 2004, began fertility treatment from 2009, and their eldest son was born in November 2011 through the transplantation of a fertilized egg. The couple separated in October 2013. 
 
 In 2014, the woman underwent another procedure to transplant a fertilized egg, which had been preserved in a frozen state before the couple’s separation. She delivered a baby girl in April 2015 before she and her husband divorced in October 2016. 
 
 The man has also filed a lawsuit seeking ¥20 million ($178,000) in compensation from the woman and the clinic involved, claiming mental suffering stemming from the incident. 
 
 The clinic said in an earlier statement that it had assumed the transplant had both parents’ approval because the couple did not request the disposal of the eggs. 
 
 Many couples in Japan seek reproductive treatment, such as in vitro fertilization, with more people marrying or having children late. There were about 420,000 cases in 2015 and 1 in 20 babies were born with the help of so-called assisted reproduction technologies. 
 
 But critics say the country needs to set more rules regarding such births. The Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology calls for medical personnel to seek the consent of the couple for each use of frozen fertilized eggs, but the actual handling of such matters is left up to hospital staff.
– A Japanese court is holding a man legally responsible for his biological child—despite her being born long after he was in any way involved with her conception. The Japan Times reports the Nara Family Court on Friday dismissed a lawsuit from a 46-year-old foreigner seeking to avoid legal responsibility for his now 2-year-old daughter. The man and his then-wife married in 2004, had a son through in vitro fertilization in 2011, and separated in 2013. But in 2014, the woman used a frozen embryo to impregnate herself. She gave birth to a daughter in 2015. The staff of the clinic handling the woman's in vitro fertilization believed the man had consented because he had never asked them to destroy the frozen embryo, according to the BBC. The court dismissed the man's lawsuit because the girl was born while he and his wife were still technically married—they didn't divorce until 2016. The judge also based her ruling on the fact that the man was spending time with his estranged wife and son post-separation, Japan Today reports. His lawyer argues he was only doing that to preserve his relationship with his son. The man plans on appealing the ruling and says new laws are needed to prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future. In a separate lawsuit, he's seeking $178,000 from his ex-wife and the clinic for mental suffering. (An NYPD officer became a father more than two years after his death.)