The Case of the Mistaken Birth of a Newborn Child] 66-Year-Old Man’s Heartbreaking Cry: “I Want to Know Who I Am” After Learning the Truth When His Mother Was Hospitalized

Ever since he was a child, he has always felt a sense of “discomfort.

Ever since I was a child, I could not shake off the feeling that I was the only one who was different from the rest of the family,” she said. While my younger brother was treated well by my father, he hit me hard and often hit me when he was drunk. At family gatherings, I was constantly told that I didn’t look like anyone else in the family.

What did I do? Satoshi Egura (66), who grew up with a sense of alienation, left home at the age of 14, saying, “This is not the place for me. He moved into a restaurant run by his friend’s parents and started working, barely attending junior high school. He worked at a hand towel shop, as a truck driver, in construction, and as a bookbinder, among other jobs. He married in his 20s, but the couple divorced within two years. Ezura recalls, “I had no memory of being loved, and I didn’t know how to make a family.

After the divorce, he started his own car sales and real estate business, and got it off the ground. He had finally gotten used to life as a business owner, and his life began to turn around, but in 1997, he learned a shocking truth. When his mother was hospitalized, a blood test revealed that he was not related to his parents. At that time, I was already 39 years old.

My blood type is A, but my father was type O and my mother was type B, an impossible biological combination. I was convinced that this was the reason for my feeling of alienation as a child, but I had a hard time accepting this fact and forced myself to convince myself that I was a child born by mutation.”

At the time, DNA testing was expensive, costing 1.8 million yen per person. There was no way to raise the money to cover the cost for three children, including the father and mother.

The only thing I could think of was that there had been a mistake.

In 2004, fate finally intervened. A university professor, who had heard Ezura’s story and was interested in the case, offered to perform a DNA analysis free of charge. The results showed that Ezura was not related to his parents, and at the age of 46, the very foundation of his identity was shattered.

The only thing I can think of is that there was a mistake at the hospital at the time of her birth.

Ezura decided to take his own action and filed a lawsuit against the Tokyo Metropolitan Government that same year, demanding compensation for damages. While folding his company and caring for his foster parents, he focused on learning about his own origins.

Even after the trial began, he could no longer contain his desire to know the truth about his origins. In 2005, Mr. Ezura visited the Tokyo Metropolitan Sumida Maternity Hospital, where he was born, in order to obtain clues.

However, the maternity hospital had already been transformed into a nursing home. He also checked the commemorative journal of Sumida Maternity Hospital, which contained birth records from that time, but only the birth record from February to July 1958, when Ezura was born, was missing.

I was living in Fukuoka at the time, but I wanted to get to know my real parents, so I went to Tokyo every weekend. Sumida Ward had access to the Basic Resident Ledger at the time, so I looked up people born in Sumida Ward on the 10 days before and after my birthday. I went house to house to see if any of them had a partner who had been mistaken for me, and asked, ‘Please tell me at which maternity hospital you were born. It took me about two years to visit all of them.

Although no clues were obtained, it was admitted in court that she was a victim of the “case of mistaken birth of a newborn baby” at the Sumida Maternity Hospital in 1958.

The second trial in 2006 ordered the payment of damages to Ms. Ezura and her foster parents, but the Tokyo Metropolitan Government refused to investigate the facts at all, citing privacy protection. Many of the family registry books disclosed by the ward were blacked out. In 2009, Ms. Ezura was forced to file another lawsuit against the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, demanding an investigation.

The mistake ruined my life,” she said. “My mother, who raised me, was also subjected to the heartless words of a Tokyo metropolitan government official who said, ‘Maybe (Ezura) is the product of your affair. I think it is morally wrong that the TMG is not acting at all, using the law and personal information as a shield.”

At least a “wish”.

The trial is still ongoing. Following the change of judges in August of this year, presentations were made based on the opinions from the perspective of international human rights law submitted by experts during this period. Reading the court documents, one gets the sense that there are still many issues, such as compatibility with the right to privacy, that need to be addressed before the right to know the status of one’s birth can be enshrined in legislation in Japan.

Takae Ito, 49, a member of the House of Councillors and secretary general of the Diet Members Caucus for Assisted Reproductive Technology, explains, “The question is where and to what extent information is required.

The question is how much information should be disclosed. In fact, there are not many countries that disclose all information on births, even in other countries. We are discussing how to secure data stocks and routes for information that children want to know, and how to disclose the information step by step.”

Mr. Ezura also understands the difficulty of developing legislation. He then added a few words of emphasis.

There are people who say they would be happier if they did not know about their origins. However, the people I have met so far, including myself, are different. I think it is necessary to help children who have been mistaken for their parents. I think the real parents are already over 90 years old. We don’t even know if they are alive. I respect the wishes of the other family member and do not intend to have any further relationship with them if they do not want to.
I want to tell my birth parents what kind of life I have led. And I want to know how my parents’ lives were too. That is purely what I want. I just want to know who I am–“

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is seeking dismissal and dismissal of the claim. Will Ezo’s heartrending cries be heard?

From the October 18-25, 2024 issue of FRIDAY