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copyright © 2003-2008 Space Allies All rights reserved.
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Reproductive
Rights in Japan in Danger
We regret to say that in Japan, there has not been
a holistic understanding of “reproductive health/rights”.
MMR
It is generally said that the maternal mortality
rate is a reflection of the women’s status and women’s rights in a society.
However, this does not apply to Japan. Japan’s MMR is 10 out of 100,000 live
births, which may seem preferable, but not optimal. Decrease in MMR in Japan is
a result of transient economic development, and not a sign that women’s choice
and dignity are respected. For example, Japan’s GEM (Gender Empowerment
Measures) ranked 54th among 93 countries. On 27 January 2007, then Minister of
Health, Labor and Welfare, Mr. Hakuo Yanagisawa said publicly that women were “machines
for child bearing”. This was not a slip of tongue but a direct expression of
Japanese government’s policy. Japan had been known as “abortion paradise”, but
unfortunately this was not the result of respect for women’s human rights and
choices; it was in fact a part of government’s population control policy. Since
1880 until today, abortion in Japan is prohibited by criminal law as feticide,
and is therefore illegal, but the Eugenic Protection Law (renamed as Law for
Protection of Mothers’ Bodies in 1996) has provided a way for abortions in
Japan as an article in this Law permits abortion for economic reasons. Groups
such as “Seicho-No-Ie” and Catholic
organizations have repeatedly submitted amendment bills to the Diet in order to
limit legal abortion in Japan. (Please read the next article for more
information on abortion.)
As we entered into
the 21st Century, there has been a backlash on reproductive rights, as seen in
the fact that it failed to become part of the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs), as well as the implementation of Bush Administration’s “Global Gag
Rule”. In this global trend, Japan also saw some changes against reproductive
rights. For example, the use of the word “gender” was denied in public
administration, and sex education materials were forfeited. This trend has been
especially apparent in the last few years. In 2005, the ruling Liberal
Democratic Party led the “Fact-Finding Project against Radical Sex Education
and ‘Gender-Free’ Education”, and criticized “explicit sex education” as well
as denying the right to abort. Japan is one of the few developed countries with
rising rate of HIV infection, and this can be seen partly as a result of
prohibiting sex education.
Women Make Women’s Health
Women’s Liberation
Movement in Japan started in 1970. It opposed government control of women’s bodies.
In 1982, it stopped the Eugenic Protection Law from being amended for the
worse. Women’s group SOSHIREN organized these actions, and built a network of
women’s organizations in Japan. SOSHIREN’s slogan is “女（わたし）のからだはわたしのものWatashi no Karada wa Watashi no Mono (My (Woman’s)
body belongs to me (to each woman))”, which means no matter what anyone else
labels my body, it is I, the woman, who get to decide what to do with it. This
is the way we translated the English term “reproductive freedom/rights” into
Japanese, and it has been our slogan since.
Japan is not a
role model in the area of reproductive health/rights, and there is not yet a
consensus on reproductive rights within the country. The following are the risk
factors to increase MMR in Japan: 1) Collapse of the obstetrics system; 2) Gap
in the medical system: lack of medical care for the poor, disabled people, and
foreigners; 3) Attack and backlash against the right to abortion.
Even within the
current backlash, it is important to win a consensus on reproductive rights,
monitor government policies on reproductive rights in Japan and abroad, lobby
the Japanese government for reproductive rights, and enter into the
international solidarity of women’s NGOs, in order to protect women’s dignity
and rights to choose.
Abortion in Japan
In Japan, there are three main laws related to
abortion: Criminal Law, the Law for Protection of Mothers’ Bodies (before the
1996 revision, it was called the Eugenic Protection Law), and the Maternal and
Child Health Law.
Criminal Law was
enacted in 1880, and penalizes both the pregnant woman and the person who
performed an abortion, as a crime of Feticide. Applying this law, many women
were imprisoned, especially during wartime. After World War II, the “Crime of
Feticide” remained.
In 1948, with the
enactment of the Eugenic Protection Law, induced abortions were legalized under
certain conditions. From 1949 the conditions included the following; 1) Eugenic
reason(*), 2) Medico-economic reason, and 3) Rape. In 1996 the Eugenic
Protection Law was partially revised. The eugenic reason for abortion was
deleted and the law came to be called the Law for Protection of Mothers’ Bodies.
But to have an abortion, judgment by a doctor and an agreement by the male
spouse of the pregnant woman are needed, so the women’s right to choose has not
been guaranteed.
“The Maternal and
Child Health Law” locates and protects a woman’s body only as “a function to
bear healthy children”.
In Japan, there
are two main issues related to abortion. One is how to defend abortion rights
in the climate of backlash against gender equality and reproductive rights. The
other is how to realize social justice in having an abortion and using some
advanced medical technologies.
Issue 1. Backlash
against abortion rights
In Japan, economic reason has been applied most
often by women who become unintentionally pregnant and wish to have an
abortion. There have been, however, many backlash movements which attempt to
delete the economic reason article, so the Women’s Liberation Movement has
actively fought to defend abortion rights.
For example, “Seicho-No-Ie” has campaigned to delete
the economic reason article as a reason for abortions and also campaigned
against the practice of birth control since the 1950's. “Seicho-No-Ie” submitted the Eugenic Protection Law Reform Bill to
delete the economic reason article and add the fetus article, to the Diet in
1972 and 1973, but the reform bill did not pass due to insufficient discussion
and examination. During the Reagan Administration, “Seicho-No-Ie” dispatched a pro-life delegate to the National Prayer
Power Breakfast and cooperated with the Moral Majority. In 1983, Mr. Masakuni
Murakami, a Diet member, participated in the U.S. Life Respect Meeting, which
was also attended by former president Reagan. In this background, “Seicho-No-Ie” attempted to re-submit the
Eugenic Protection Law Reform Bill intending to delete an economic reason
article in 1982, but the attempt failed due to resistance from the Women’s
Liberation Movement, the movement by people with disabilities, the Japan Family
Planning Association, and other many groups.
Many pro-life
organizations were established in Japan from the late 1980s. For example, Japan
Life Movement has actively disseminated pro-life information from the Holy See
in Japan since 1987. In 1991, pro-life groups organized the International Life
Respect Tokyo Meeting, receiving support from the Life Issue Institute. The
Life Respect Center established the Yen-bryo
(embryo) Fund in 1993 to prevent abortions for economic distress.
Since the ICPD
(1994), the word “reproductive health/rights” has been used gradually by public
women’s centers and local public entities in Japan. The idea of respecting a
woman’s choice has gradually come into existence. After 2001, however, the
neo-conservatives who helped establish U.S. Bush Administration strengthened
pressure on the Japanese government to insert conservative family values,
including denying abortion rights, into Japanese policy.
As a result, the
national second Gender Equality Basic Plan (2005) was extensively altered to
limit reproductive rights. The national first Gender Equality Basic Plan (2000)
stated:
reproductive
health/rights include the rights to choose whether we give birth or not, when
we give birth, and how many children we bear. General provisions to promote
women’s health throughout their lives are needed from the viewpoint of
reproductive health/rights.
The national second Gender Equality Basic Plan,
however, states:
the
Japanese government does not accept abortion rights beyond the description of
law because abortion is covered by Criminal Law and the Law for Protection of
Mothers’ Bodies.
In addition, a hospital, which objects abortions
from the Catholic anti-abortionist point of view, established in 2007 the
“stork cradle,” which anonymously receives newborn babies from parents who
cannot raise them.
Issue 2.
Relationship between women’s movement and movement of people with disabilities
In Japan, the Women’s Liberation Movement, for
example “SOSHIREN(**)”, has brought the close relationship; from collision to
cooperation with the movement of people with disabilities to prevent the
Eugenic Protection Law from a change for the worse. The Eugenic Protection Law
aimed at “preventing birth of a bad descendant from the eugenic standpoint”.
The Law promoted sterilization, even though what women had wanted was the
rights to contraception and abortion. In addition, the fetus article to admit
an abortion when the fetus has a disability was controversial in the protest
movement against the attempt to change the Eugenic Protection Law for the
worse. People with disabilities were afraid that fetus with disabilities would
be aborted selectively if abortion rights were guaranteed. Therefore women’s
movement discussed the issue with many people with disabilities and carried
forward the movement for preventing the Eugenic Protection Law from a change
for the worse. The women’s movement insisted that the society where every woman
can bear any child should be developed.
Although the
technology, such as prenatal diagnosis and pre-implantation diagnosis to select
a fetus, has been developed, the women’s movement has opposed selecting a fetus
by its condition such as having an disability or by its sex, and has objected
to the eugenic thought to torment not only people with disabilities but also
women who bore a child with disabilities. But the women’s movement has taken
the standpoint clearly that a woman who performed any abortion should not be
punished by the law, even if she had an abortion not to bear a fetus with disabilities.
These are the main
features of the movement on abortion in Japan. Space Allies demands that “Crime of
Feticide” be abolished and women’s right to abort be guaranteed worldwide.
(*The Eugenic
Protection Law, enacted in 1948, expanded the conditions for abortion on the othe0072 hand it aimed to prohibit births of “defective” offspring from a
eugenic point of view. By applying this Law, or rather misapplying it, many
sterilizations were carried out.)
(**SOSHIREN homepage: www.soshiren.org)