One under-reported aspect of life for women in Japan is that they lack absolute control over their reproductive organs. In particular, women can’t opt for sterilization surgery if they decide they never want to have children. One group fighting to change that suffered a major setback this week after a court upheld the current law.
Tokyo court upholds getting your husband’s permission for sterilization
The law is known as the Maternal Health Act (母体保護法; botai hogohō) and was originally part of Japan’s controversial (and since repealed) eugenics laws. When passed in 1948, it allowed abortion for some women under economic distress, while also mandating sterilization for people with mental disabilities. Legislators revised the law in 1951 and 1952 to provide easy access to contraception and general access to abortion services.
Japan repealed the worst parts of the Eugenics Law in 1996. At the same time, it revised the Maternal Health Act to prevent women from obtaining sterilization surgery at all unless their health was at risk or they had already borne multiple children. Even in those cases, married women required their husbands’ consent. (The same is true for abortion: the father of a child, if known, must consent to the procedure.)
The change in the law allowed those who had been forcibly sterilized to seek damages from the government. However, it also prevented all women in Japan from accessing sterilization procedures of their own volition.
A group of five women in their 20s and 30s challenged this law in Tokyo. They argued that the law robbed them of their right to self-determination, which is protected by Article 13 of the Constitution of Japan.
The government of Japan opposed the lawsuit, saying the law was required to protect the health and lives of women in Japan. It further argued that easy access to contraception and abortion preserved the right to self-determination. (Indeed, Japan recently approved over-the-counter access to the morning-after pill, making pregnancy prevention even easier.)
The Tokyo Court sided with the government and denied the women’s petition.
Japanese women under pressure
The five women who sued say they wanted to be relieved from the pressure they felt from a society they feel is increasingly encouraging them to have kids.
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Depopulation in Japan remains a hot topic as the number of live births continues to decline steeply year over year. Politicians have resorted to all sorts of measures to encourage people to have kids, including offering coupons and cash incentives to new parents.
None of these measures, however, has moved the needle. Surveys show that, rather than economic concerns, young people in Japan would rather see their country make child-rearing easier. More than two-thirds, for example, say that creating better work-life balance, codifying remote work, and making it easier to take parental leave might change their minds about raising a family.
Another issue is that, when a heterosexual couple has kids, most of the burden for raising them and maintaining the household disproportionately falls on women. Studies show that Japan has one of the world’s worst gender imbalances when it comes to the percentage of housework and childcare burdens shouldered by women vs. men.
In other words, giving women the right to choose when not to have children wouldn’t impact the birthrate one iota. Tackling the host of issues that prevent people from deciding to have kids in the first place would do much more to move the needle.
Currently, however, it seems Japan isn’t ready for that conversation.
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Sources
女性の「不妊手術解禁」の訴え認めず 母体保護法訴訟で東京地裁判決. Mainichi Shimbun
母体保護法. Wikipedia JP
