View Health:Abortion
Terminating a pregnancy is a controversial issue, but it is a decision made by about 350,000 women in Japan every year, and a small percentage of them are Western women who have the added difficulty of being in a foreign country. The Western women I spoke with agreed that certain aspects of the experience made it less unpleasant than they felt it would have been in their home countries. The attitude towards abortion is quite different here from that in our home countries; in Japan it is considered a ‘necessary sadness’ and a natural process. Counselling is not provided, nor is it assumed that you will suffer any kind of moral dilemma. Please be aware of this when you visit a doctor, and don’t be surprised by their matter-of-fact approach.
Hone pregnancy testing kits are available from any chemist and are pretty easy to spot. They come in pink boxes showing pictures that represent urinating on a stick and seeing the stick change colour. Some have instructions in English, but the pictorial instructions are really easy to understand.
For young women, parental consent for a termination is not required; however, for all women, written consent from ‘the father’ is required. If this is not possible, then a male friend will suffice. Health insurance does not cover abortions, so you will need to pay about ¥120,000.
An anesthetic is not always used, so check beforehand. If you are in the first three months of pregnancy, the cervix will be dilated and the womb scraped or suctioned. Your visit may take just a few hours. If your pregnancy is more advanced, labour will be induced and you will need to stay overnight. Your doctor will explain the methods in detail. All the women specifically commented on how kind and friendly the staff members were throughout the whole procedure.
‘Mizuko Jizo’
Many women or couples in Japan who have terminated a pregnancy, suffered a miscarriage, or had a stillborn baby choose to honour the soul of this child through a practice called mizuko jizo. Mizuko means ‘child of the water’ and is used to refer to the soul of a child who has been returned to the gods, and Jizo is the name of the Buddhist god who protects and guides that soul on its journey to another world.
Abortion is regarded as the parents willingly making a decision to return a child to the gods, sending a child to a temporary place until such time that it is right for the child to come into this world, either into the same family or another one. The child is returned because the parents, at that time, would be unable to provide enough love, money, or attention to this child, without it being to the detriment of their present family. Practising mizuko jizo allows the parents to provide a certain amount of attention to the child, who is regarded as a member of their family: to apologise to the child and to ask for forgiveness from their child for being unable to bring them up.