Abortion pill won’t be available to Japanese women without partner’s consent

Authored by telegraph.co.uk and submitted by Relevant-Ad-4708
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Three decades after the abortion pill became available to women in the UK, Japan is inching closer to approving the drug – but there is a catch. Under the new law, it is expected that it will only be prescribed with the consent of the woman’s partner.

Legislation to approve medical abortion pills is winding its way through Japan’s parliament after British pharmaceutical company Linepharma International applied last year to market a combination of two drugs for the purposes of abortion. A decision is expected before the end of the year.

Women’s rights groups have criticised the legislation as it requires the woman’s partner to agree to the termination - under the same rules that apply to surgical abortion - but also because it has taken so long for Japan’s male-dominated political and medical communities to consider it.

They point out that medical abortion - which can be used to terminate a pregnancy in the early stages without surgery - has been available in many parts of the world for decades.

‘Women are not the property of men’

They also note that while oral contraceptives were only legalised in 1999 after a drawn-out nine-year legal debate, Japanese politicians took just six months to approve Viagra, the erectile dysfunction medication produced by Pfizer Inc.

Questioned by a parliamentary committee earlier this month, a health ministry bureaucrat stated that the standards required for a surgical abortion under the 1948 Maternal Protection Law should be applied to the morning-after pill.

“In principle, we believe that spousal consent is necessary, even if an abortion is induced by an oral medication,” said Yasuhiro Hashimoto, the head of the ministry’s child and family policy bureau.

But Mizuho Fukushima, a politician from the opposition Social Democratic Party, was critical of the ministry’s position, asking the hearing, “Why should a woman need her partner’s approval? It’s her body”.

“Women are not the property of men”, she added. “Their rights, not those of the man, should be protected”.

Around 145,000 surgical abortions were carried out in Japan in 2020, which is one of only 11 nations that still require the consent of the woman’s partner for the procedure to go ahead.

That requirement has been criticised by the World Health Organisation and the UN committee on the elimination of discrimination against women.

RiskyPandas on June 1st, 2022 at 14:39 UTC »

Is there any way to prove who the father is though…? Can’t women just take any man to do it for them?

throughawayaccount01 on June 1st, 2022 at 11:35 UTC »

How do they know who the father is? 🤔

Rabe_Fledermaus on June 1st, 2022 at 11:34 UTC »

I think it’s just their compromise on the issue. But in practice with the surgical abortion and needing a signature, they don’t actually care. Like , you can sign it yourself and they accept it and perform the abortion. As long as there are scribbles there, you’re good.

ETA: just want to add that from living in USA and then Japan, abortion was FAR more accessible for women in Japan.