A Woman's Right to Choose - Japan

June 1998
While abortion is a highly controversial subject in most of the developed world, in Japan it's become so routine it's accepted as a form of birth control.

This extraordinary situation has developed because the contraceptive pill is banned. The Japanese admit to over 300,000 abortions annually but the real number is likely to be double that. One Japanese doctor admits that the reason doctors haven't been campaigning for the pill's introduction is that it would erode their huge income from abortions. 19 year old Yoshie is seven weeks pregnant. She says seven of her friends have had ten abortions between them. The Japanese authorities believe the pill will make women promiscuous. Tens of thousands of replicas of Jizo-sama, the Guardian of Dead Children, stand in temples across Japan. Japanese women buy them to placate the spirits of their foetus. This hard-hitting report looks at the painful consequences for young Japanese women undergoing abortions merely because the pill is not available.

Produced by ABC Australia
Distributed by Journeyman Pictures

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Japan
• Abortion
• women's
• rights
• contraceptive
• pill
• female
• Journeyman
• Pictures
• news
• documentary
• current affairs
• journeyman
• journeyman pictures

[sesshora44]

Japanese woman should be able to have the right to take the pill instead of having to go through abortion after abortion. Just b/c they want to keep their extra money from abortions and not worry about the thousand of lives their killing in the process.

[Wandsaber09]

So these girls and boys don't consider wearing condoms, or females taking Birth Control pills.

But hey this is any person who gets pregnant.

The pill is scary???Are they serious??What's scary is having too many abortions that it will lead you to not being able to have babies, or worse death.

[MetalIsEvolution]

as you can see in the description this was filmed in the late 1990s; condoms and 'the pill' are likely to be much more available

[amerimashiro]

what a foolish inaccurate ABC report as usual....

The pill is legal and it is in fact easily obtained if there is the doctor's prescription in Japan.

The abortions in Japan are 242,292 in 2008. This was rather small against the population ratio, compared with other countries. As WHO points out,the healthy statistics of Japan are generally accurate, and unreported number is very little. Abortion is total legal and managed well and the accident is very few.

[HappyHooker83]

@sesshora44 Yeah, it's a life but so are cockroaches but because they don't have consciousness like a fetus we have no qualms with taking their lives. Also, what determines a person is viability.

Take for instance a case in India where a 38 year old man's twin brother lived inside of him as a fetus, with it's own brain and all. But it was killed because it was not viable and incapable of physically living outside of it's host like a parasite.

[ryusuna]

Its stupid to think its right to force a woman to give birth, for religious or other reasons but its outraging to know that they're using abortion as a contraceptive. Let them have the pill. its not that big of a deal. or why can't they have spirals or other kinds of contraceptives to help women who are not ready or doesn't want to have a child.

[SchizoCarpetBeater]

I'm so sick of governments or health care officials fucking with facts to stop things they don't like when they could be helping people

[krnboy1009]

@Capricola37914 Screw that, the definition of baby shouldnt depend on being outside or inside of a womb. It doesnt make sense.

[krnboy1009]

@Capricola37914 see that doesnt make sense, does that mean a fetus thats ready to born, in mere hour is not a human being? he or she is going to have everything a newborn will have, just its not out of the womb yet. So we should be able to kill it. If we are gonna do that why dont we just legalize infanticide?

[robdmccoy]

How hypocritical is it to be singing an opera song in celebration of a babies first year, when you murder about 700 a year? Despicable.

[krnboy1009]

And theres the key word LIVING INSIDE, so you admit that babies are living, alive, so abortion would mean killing no?

[krnboy1009]

@HereWasNicole You are a true idiot. I am not going to say whether or not abortion should be allowed, but a baby at some point is NOT part of the mother, at least not completely.