Politician proposes banning abortion to improve Japan’s birthrate

Posted on March 2, 2013 by Adam Westlake in National with 29 Comments
Politician proposes banning abortion to improve Japan’s birthrate

The combination of a declining birthrate and rapidly aging population are among the biggest problems currently facing Japanese society. With already over 20% of Japanese aged 65 or older, and the expectation that the percentage will double by the year 2060, the country’s government is exploring many options to improve the situation. But Seiko Noda, a lawmaker with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, has suggested an option that would surely lead to controversy: banning abortions.

As a mostly secular-minded country, the topic of abortion isn’t controversial in Japan like some Western countries with Judeo-Christian influences. Abortions have been legal for decades and are widely accepted. Noda says that with over 200,000 terminated pregnancies a year in Japan, that is the best place to begin in order to improve the country’s birthrate. She continues that she will have the idea reviewed after Upper House elections this summer.

Never mind the fact that a solution like banning abortions wouldn’t even begin to address the issue of why Japanese people are choosing to have fewer children, it would really only compound existing problems that the government fails to deal with now. The two biggest being social welfare for younger generations, in this case low-income families with children, and the poor rate of adoption. As more of the country’s aging population reaches retirement, welfare is mostly dished out in the form of social security, and the serious lack of day care options for young, working mothers is a concern that is beginning to be discussed extensively.

In her proposal, at least Noda acknowledges that measures would need to be taken to improve adoptions, but that is an issue on its own that already needs to be addressed. And if people are already choosing not to have their own children, what is going to make them want to adopt?

[via Mercator Net]
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  • eiffe

    fighting the symptom and not the cause is always a bad idea!

    • Whirled Peas

      I totally agree!

    • johnts1975ii

      exactly mate.

  • Andrew

    Japanese have abortions because you cant easily give babies up for adoption. Also sex is part of their culture. To not have sex makes it difficult for girls to receive marriage. Sex and dating are essential in their culture. If someone becomes pregnant and they are unable to marry yet, and they have a baby their family’s will often abandon or exile the girl. It’s terrible. These need to be fixed first before abortions are stopped.

    • Andrew

      THERE ARE NO ORPHANAGES EITHER!!!!! where can the babies go?

      • irairaneko

        There are children’s ‘homes’ that look after babies and kids. A big problem is the lack of procedure to make placed children available for adoption. They can be placed there and be in limbo pretty much until adulthood.

        • andrew

          but they are poor and low quality. My girlfriend who on that for her undergrad thesis.

      • Ivy

        There are orphanages in Japan. Look up children’s homes or child welfare institutes. Though in my opinion this is no better a solution than the foster care system in the U.S.

        P.S. Last time I looked, sex is a part of every culture, otherwise said culture would go the way of the Shakers.

        • Andrew

          but they are poor and low quality. My girlfriend who on that for her undergrad thesis. Westerner’s have a strong christian influence which characterizes sexuality as something to ashamed of, although current popular culture attempts to deny those precepts. Where-as Japanese culture traditionally lacks any sort of rules of conduct when engaging in sexuality. I have translated kagero nikki as-well as nijo nikki. Sex for Japanese is a normal bodily function. This is why rape is so common in Japan.

          • Andrew

            wrote about that for her*

          • Ivy

            Sad Andrew, really sad that you equate rape with sexuality. And if sex is not a normal bodily function than what is it? Even in the West with its “strong Christian values” rape is very common even among the clergy. So please spare me your proselytizing on how Christian values mitigate this behavior.

            P.S. Your statement regarding the poor quality of orphanages is suspect since your modus operandi is hyperbole, per your insistence, and I quote, that “THERE ARE NO ORPHANAGES EITHER!!!!” This in spite of the fact that your girlfriend wrote a thesis on the subject.

          • No

            It’s not “common among the clergy”, it is the guys who are dreaming of abusing small boys are especially drawn to positions where they can use their authority to gain those goals. People don’t become homosexual pederasts because they join a religion, it’s those people who strive for authoritarian positions (in and out of religions) in which they can easier abuse children.

            Oh, and if sex is just normal boily function, I bet you’d have no problem if your husband/bf goes out once a week to have this normal bodily function practices in different places.

            Cool – people throwing phrases at people who counter with other phrases …

          • Ivy

            Please, if you’re going to quote me have the courtesy to do so within the context of what I have said — not to mention correctly. I draw my statement from the headlines which daily report church leaders from all denominations running amok, though not just sexually, I will admit. However, the commonness of such reports cannot be denied.

            Like many people who have no idea what their talking about, you conflate homosexuality with pedophilia; this has been studied and found patently false. And whether these men join their various church hierarchies with good intentions or in order to more easily abuse people has never been researched as far as I know. You speak in generalities you cannot back up.

            Lastly, why do you jump to the conclusion that viewing sex as normal results in promiscuity? Are you saying that those who do not see sex through the prism of Christianity have no values at all? That view too is patently false.

          • No

            I am not conflating homosexuality and pedophilia. Pedophilia occurs not only in churches, and not only between same sex members. I know that! Seems the media isn’t willing to consider, when they ignore or largely downplay any occurings outside of churches.

            What’s more, studies who have shown that homosexuality and pedophilia are often enough closely interlinked, are outlawed for at least two decades. I would like to see those studies you mention – I’m trying to find them. Not from within the last decades. All there is are taboos. Because it’s non-p.c..

            Maybe you should question the things you believe you know too a bit. The issues were addressed before in the church, as there are homosexual networks inside the church who do their own thing, f.e. defying clarification of crimes. It’s also not hard to acknowledge, that it were all boys abused and molested by men.

            These issues have been published long ago, and one could know it (if wanted). But we are all so p.c. that we just go with whatever the media feeds us. After all, we know who are the good guys and who are the evil.

          • Whirled Peas

            @ Andrew. You say ” Sex for Japanese is a normal bodily function. This is why rape is so common in Japan.” OMG, I don’t know where to begin. So I’ll just say Margaret Mead and Alfred Kroeber are rolling over in their graves reading that assertion (assuming they have an internet connection). If you really went to Berkeley you could have benefited from taking a cultural anthropology methods course from their distinguished faculty.

          • y.m.

            go study about Japan than just making up BS

          • Far East

            Thank you. I was going to reply the same thing :-)

          • No

            Aaaawwwwwwwwww … I CAN NOT STAND THIS BULLSHIT ANYMOOOOOORRREEEE! Seriously, I’m interested in all things Japanese for more than two decades now, and I compare with other cultures and try understand things. And I’m sick and tired of things like “oh, but Western countries have this strong Judeo-Christian influence that makes them feel ashamed about sex” – for Fragg’s sake, it would be a nice world if people really considered Christian ethics anymore. And often, at the same time, Jerks who are soooo much idealizing everything in this regard in Japan. Yeah, isn’t it great, all the sex everywhere, and it’s so cheap and easy to get (you know how many guys fall “in love” with Japan for mainly THAT reason?!) Probably great, as long as you are male, not engaged and have the money. But there’s a price for these things too, and you will get to hear this if you get the Japanese girls (those who still have their bras on) to talk about love and relationships in Japan, between soaplands, host clubs and soushokudanshis … Seriously, when it comes to Japan in they eyes of Westerners I can’t help but thinking that it serves as a projection screen for alleged Western complexes, that are actually but imagined.

          • Ivy

            And your projection is pretty scary.

  • krk

    Like Japan doesn’t already have enough problems with mothers killing their kids. They should call this bill the ‘baby in every dumpster’ plan.

  • irairaneko

    Awareness of and availability of contraception needs to be improved, as well as sex education in schools. An overhaul of adoption procedures is indeed necessary.

  • RP

    Part of this problem comes from the desire for Japan to remain culturally pure and excluding any outsiders including immigration.

    Banning abortions is not a solution as it would only add to the other problems related to raising children.

    It would take a major changes in Japanese cultural attitudes and ideology before the shrinking birth rate in Japan can change or improve.

    • Far East

      It has more to do with cost of living and lack of space than the “desire for Japan to remain culturally pure and excluding any outsiders including immigration”.
      You ought to come, live here and exchange with Japanese a little bit seriously.

      • Think

        Thank you for your quiet voice of reason in this discussion and crushing two hoary old homilies about Japan, FE!

        You can imagine the ‘Japan bashers’ screaming if all new immigrants were forced to live in the ‘coffin apartments’ we’ve just read of elsewhere that some Japanese are?

        However, despite how badly Andrew expressed it and how factual erroneous his ideas about rape statistics or its causal factors are, I think sex in Japan does occupy slightly different mental territory and have different values than in “Christian societies”, and especially societies with more of a feminist influence. I don’t know enough about adolescent sexual activity in Japan but a greater proportion of adult sexual activity appears to be geared towards male gratification and yet rape estimates are thought to be 20 times less than those in the USA. Abortion figures in the USA are also twice as high.

        It’s very difficult to generalize, because of the obvious breaking down of traditional Christian values, and it might be wrong to assign it to Jewish or Christian values due to, on one hand, other non-Christian secular values being present in those societies and, on the other hand, such anomalies as the Jewish domination of the pornography industry and the pornographization of modern society. Jewish and Christian or even Catholic and Protestant values are not the same.

        Does Japan really need to replenish its population or even grow? I would say absolutely no. Constant priapic growth might be the economists’ wet dream but I think what Japan ought to be considering is managing its decline to sustainable levels of population and this process is now occurring naturally. There are far too many people in Japan and there are good arguments to support the benefits of a homogenous society.

        Far simpler and less horrendous ways of increasing population growth are available, e.g. allowing husbands to spend more time with their wives and families and not sending them home drunk and exhausted late at night (!), providing secure employment for blue collar workers, and a revolutionary alteration in real estate values making homes worthy investments would all help.

        I have no idea why Westerners insist of foisting immigration on Japan other than out of a desire to destroy its society. Why invite in immigrant labor, and all their attendant costs and arising social problems, when you can take capital overseas to work for you? And what of the rights and livelihoods of Japan’s already too numerous insecure working classes?

        • Far East

          Very well said and analyzed, thank you! Especially, you make an excellent point that the perception of sexuality is different in asian countries than it is in western ones. Thus, any attempt to generalization without taking under account the cultural factor would not be even close to something resembling reality. Another good example is suicide. If you look at it as a Westerner, you’d be shocked at the number, and although it is certainly bad, because it underpins distress and despair, one need to take under account that this is a buddhist country that broadly believe in reincarnation.

          On your point on the size of the population, I agree that its decrease does not necessarily imply something bad, but there are 2 important negative consequence that need to be managed:

          1) the skewed pyramid of age that makes Japan not just shrinking, but unbalanced with more and more elders. This is also pushing Japan to evolve in industries where it has the edge, ie home automation, robotization, DNA, stem cell research, bio nano technology, space exploration and other high technology.

          2) the ever more very heavy cost of infrastructure. Japan has a massive infrastructure and lesser volume of tax payer to account for it. They will have to decommission a lot of it. Again, I don’t think the decrease is bad per say. I think this will lead to a social contention point whose climax will help change Japan society by itself, as it has repeatedly over the length of its history. Indeed, a lot of people, try to make prognostic or re-invent solutions about Japan, but they forget that any country future is like a line taking roots in its past. Sometime a revolutionary change happen and the line is more curve, but mostly it is straight, and so where it is evolving is simply in line (no pun intended) with its past). I think it is interesting to refer to Gleicher formula of change, reflecting human nature.

          As you wrote, increasing immigration of foreigner would badly hurt Japan very homogeneous culture. On the other hand, I think it is important, economically, that Japan opens more its markets to foreign direct investment (FDI), and that is what has started to open since 2012 with several talks of multilateral trade agreements, like the TPP.

          Japan is a very wealthy nation with individuals owning over $15 trillion in financial assets (that excludes by definition any real-estate), making it one of the very wealthiest in the world, so they have the power to manage their change like they always have. They certainly don’t need foreigners ignorant of the Japanese culture and history to tell them how to do it. Especially when those foreign countries’ culture are defunct.

          • Think

            I’ve never actually read a proper case for a managed decline.

            I have no idea why outsiders demand foisting immigration on Japan other than as part of a larger albeit unconscious agenda to reinforce its identity as being racist so as to admonish racism against it; or perhaps a longer term strategy to de-stablize Japan from within.

            For example, the last thing I would as a nation is invite Muslims in and concede to their religion (the same goes for any of the other Middle Eastern, anti-nature, monotheistic religions).

            I’ve never actually heard someone question whether Japan can actually simply afford the re-adjustment. The majority of old people I see in Japan are perfectly willing and capable of looking after themselves far beyond an age Westerners would have hung up their clogs and turned into couch potatoes. Indeed, they continue to provide a large percentage of the nation’s food.

            Speaking frankly, I think it is a far better and healthier old age than sitting in front of the television and complaining about medical ailments. It’s also an old age I am looking at … the reality of working until you die.

            Lucky baby boomers, they ate all the cream, consumed most of the world’s resources and screwed up the environment.

            Why must the rest of us also pay for their retirement too?

  • http://twitter.com/eleuthero01 Michael Craig

    This from a woman who gave birth to her first baby…at 50!!

  • Whirled Peas

    Banning abortion is not the answer to increasing the population. Here are a few unintended consequences of a ban, which will surely thwart the goal.

    1, Increased use of contraception by women or couples who definitely don’t want children, at least at that moment in time. Not a bad consequence per se, but not in line with the goal.

    2, Women/couples will seek illegal abortions from legitimate doctors OR from the unlicensed. And, the no abortion policy will provide a business opportunity for the criminal element. As a result Japan will have to spend time and money to monitor and enforce the new law – more bureaucracy, more hassle.

    3, Orphanages or foster care systems will come under a huge strain – again, more bureaucracy, and more children will be raised under sub-optimal conditions and will require a life time of care and support by the state.

    It’s far better to provide positive incentives and to create conditions for the desired behavior to occur – the desired behavior being not only giving birth to more babies, but parents raising them in a loving homes.

    Commenter Think has suggested a few of these conditions: reduce work hours to allow more couple time, provide more secure employment, and make purchase of homes an investment.

    And in the thread on daycare, someone suggested the reasons for low birthrate were low expectations of being able to find reliable daycare, the cost of daycare and education, and the cost of raising a child period. Yet another commenter suggested decentralizing the location of the good jobs so that daycare [and other services – my add on] isn’t so impacted n a few major hubs. I would add for consideration, a decent maternity or paternity leave, monetary and tax incentives for having two or three children (in Japan maybe incentives for even one child!), and discounts on public transportation and museums (all from the French). Of course one can’t just graft one country’s policies onto another, but they could be considered.

    Fundamental to this discussion is to what degree if any does Japan (or any other country) really need to increase the birthrate (as Think and Far East have eloquently addressed). That is a hugely complicated question that involves assessing the country’s current circumstances and projections for the future, what kind of society a country would like to strive to be, and the degree to which any number of factors are controllable. For example, does Japan see itself as producer of the world’s goods?Or, a primarily financial and serviceeconomy? Or an Edo-period type self-sufficient and self-sustaining economy well-balanced between agriculture and industry, with an eye toward re-cyle, re-use, and
    reduce? Or something else.

    And how does it propose to you solve the problem endemic to many countries: What to do when old and infirm can no longer take care of themselves? This question really struck me when I recently visited a great aunt who can no longer be left alone.. She has five adult children (astounding by today’s standards). By day she is in quality adult daycare staffed by young and middle-aged workers, but at night and on weekends the five children who live nearby rotate and take care of their mother in their own homes. Without her children nearby and a tight-knit relationship this aunt would surely be in an assisted care institution day and night. I’m not saying we should have five children, nor that having children guarantees care in old age, and many people do NOT want to be a burden on their children. But it does make one think of the kind of society we have become (here in the US and elsewhere).

  • thesmallrider

    “As a mostly secular-minded country, the topic of abortion isn’t controversial in Japan like some Western countries with Judeo-Christian influences. Abortions have been legal for decades and are widely accepted.”
    THIS IS TOTALLY WRONG … abortion was forbidden until 2006 in Japan ! WTF journalist is that ? It so hard to abort in Japan even today, so much social pressure … have you ever been here ?