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'We're not wombs': Japan women seek rights to sterilisation
- Five women challenge Japan's decades-old maternity protection law next week, with a verdict expected in their landmark lawsuit dubbed "maternity is not my body's purpose."
- Dating from a wartime era when women were considered population resources, the law effectively manages all fertile women as potential maternal bodies by requiring spousal consent and banning sterilization for healthy, childless women.
- A 2002 EngenderHealth study found Japan is one of eight countries among more than 70 that severely restricted sterilization access, making it a global outlier among modern democracies.
- In a Tokyo District Court filing, government officials defended existing restrictions, claiming they "help guarantee those considering surgery rights to self-determination" and prevent future regret.
- Lawyer Michiko Kameishi aims to establish constitutional bodily freedom for plaintiffs like Kazane Kajiya and Rena Sato, though "the myth persists that women are incomplete without motherhood," limiting public support.
36 Articles
36 Articles
Until now, Japanese legislation requires that a woman already have several children and that her health be threatened in order to be sterilized, with the consent of the spouse.
Japanese women await the verdict of a historic trial with which they seek to put an end to decades of limitations on their reproductive rights, specifically with regard to voluntary sterilization, while their country is rapidly ageing. Four women led by Kazane Kajiya, brought before the courts the constitutionality of a 1940 law on "maternity protection", one of the most restrictive in the world regarding sterilization, which prevents hysterecto…
When Kazane Kajiya was voluntarily sterilized, she felt that she had "addressed a finger of honor" to a patriarchal Japanese society.
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