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"In
the three decades it has deliberated over the pill, the Health Ministry
has raised a number of health concerns. Initially, it raised worries about
side effects from the pill's high level of hormones. The ministry now cites
worries about sexually transmitted diseases, cancer, and environmental damage
from hormone residue in the urine of women using the pill" (Nicole
Gaouette, The Christian Science Monitor, March 11, 1999).
"Though the ministry accepted data from US clinical tests about
Viagra, it is not swayed by Japanese tests on the pill or its overseas approval.
'There are still things that need to be debated,' explains spokesman Yasuhide
Furusawa" (Nicole Gaouette, The Christian Science Monitor, March
11, 1999).
"Family-planning groups and some doctors see chauvinism in the
delay, saying it reflects a male-dominated society's desire to limit women's
choices. But two factors shape the struggle over the pill even more deeply"
(Nicole Gaouette, The Christian Science Monitor, March 11, 1999).
"The first is Japan's declining birthrate, a matter of intense
political concern because of its enormous economic and social impact. Senior
politicians from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have expressed
concern that the pill would further depress the birthrate" (Nicole
Gaouette, The Christian Science Monitor, March 11, 1999).
"Second, the government has generally used its regulatory power
to manage population size. 'Basically, government attitudes and male parliamentarians
attitudes haven't changed at all,' says Yuriko Ashino of the Family Planning
Federation of Japan. 'Their basic thinking is against women's reproductive
rights. That idea is deeply rooted'"(Nicole Gaouette, The Christian
Science Monitor, March 11, 1999).
"When Japan modernized in the late 1800s, it passed laws banning
abortion and infanticide, because Western economic models favored large
industrial work forces. When depression struck after World War I, the government
began promoting family planning" (Nicole Gaouette, The Christian
Science Monitor, March 11, 1999).
"The tide shifted in the lead-up to World War II, when the government
used the slogan 'Bear Children. Swell the Population'" (Nicole Gaouette,
The Christian Science Monitor, March 11, 1999).
"Defeat brought a lack of food and housing, a baby boom, the
repatriation of thousands of Japanese from former colonies, and revived
interest in birth control. The government's 19th-century ban on abortion
still stood, so it passed a law permitting abortions for medical, eugenic,
ethical, or economic reasons" (Nicole Gaouette, The Christian Science
Monitor, March 11, 1999).
"Unless an abortion falls under one of the exceptions, technically
it is punishable under criminal law. In the 1980's, when concern about the
declining birthrate was growing rapidly, the LDP tried but failed to strip
the economic justification for abortions from the law. This clause covers
90 percent of abortions, which are a large lucrative industry here. Unwanted
pregnancies - 36 percent in Japan - compared with 19 percent in the US in
1992" (Nicole Gaouette, The Christian Science Monitor, March 11,
1999).
"With more women in government campaigning for the pill's approval,
that may soon change. Some politicians, like Democratic Party's Yoko Komiyama,
expect to see a difference within the next year. But she tells a story that
illustrates the Health Ministry's tight-lipped approach - even with legislators"
(Nicole Gaouette, The Christian Science Monitor, March 11, 1999).
"When Ms. Komiyama asked the health minister last month how
meetins on the pill were progressing, he told her that it was important
to protect the free speech of decisionmakers. With that in mind, he said,
it might be possible to release minutes of their meetings in two years"
(Nicole Gaouette, The Christian Science Monitor, March 11, 1999).
"'The committee [deliberating on the pill] is very closed,'
Ms. Komiyama observes, 'and mostly male'" (Nicole Gaouette, The
Christian Science Monitor, March 11, 1999).
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