Is abortion legal in Japan? No, but also yes. Join us on a journey through history to learn about how modern abortion law developed in a legal system that didn’t treat fetuses as legal persons but did want to count them as future taxpayers.
Content note: This episode is about abortion. It contains discussions of miscarriages, the complications of improper administration of abortifacients, forced sterilization, sexually transmitted diseases, and sex work.
Featured image: Sexual Life Rules, a woodblock print by Yoshitsuna with the inner body of a courtesan shown as a brothel. Japan’s long history of legal sex work contributed to its general legal acceptance of sharing information about birth control in early modern history. (Image source)
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A late 19th century woodblock print admonishes readers against abortion. (Image source)
Margaret Sanger and her son meet with Shizue Kato, a prominent women’s rights and birth control activist in Japan. (Image source)
Most Japanese laws on abortion did not engage with the same assumptions about fetal personhood that are common in legislation against abortion in America, but on a personal and cultural level, things are much more complex. Jizō statues commemorating unborn and stillborn children stand at many Japanese Buddhist temples, including these at Zōjō-ji. (Image source)
Sources
- Abortion in Late Imperial China: Routine Birth Control or Crisis Intervention?
- The Criminalization of Abortion in Meiji Japan
- How Seitōsha Impacted Abortion During the Late Meiji Period to Taishō Period
- The formation of the early Meiji legal order: the Japanese code of 1871 and its Chinese foundation
- Abortion Before Birth Control: The Politics of Reproduction in Postwar Japan
- “You don’t need a knife to kill an actress” Radical scandal coverage of silver screen star Akiko Shiga’s “abortion incident”
- The Political Process of Establishing the Mother-Child Protection Law in Prewar Japan
- “At least 85 babies were killed” “Koju Maternity Hospital Incident”
- The Logic of Abortion: Japanese Debates on the Legitimacy of Abortion as Seen in Post–World War II Newspapers
- Eugenic Protection Law in Japan
- The Testimony Of A Victim Of Forced Sterilization In Japan: Kita Saburō
- Abortion on the job
- Artificial Interruption of Pregnancy Law of Japan
- Artificial Interruption of Pregnancy Law of Japan: Partial Revision of the Eugenic Protection Law and the Problems of the Motherhood Protection Law
- Seicho-No-Ie USMHQ – Our Mission (This is the wild new religious movement we discussed in the episode)
- Support for legal abortion is widespread in many countries, especially in Europe
- Abortion without spousal consent: “Doctor not at fault” Fukuoka High Court branch dismisses appeal
- Japan Moves to Make Morning After Pill More Accessible
- Japan ranks 116th in 2022 gender gap, worst in East Asia, Pacific
- New 2023 Gender Gap Report Shows Women’s Progress Slipping in Japan
- As Japan Struggles With Gender Equality, Record Number of Women Appointed to Cabinet