Japanese court finds restrictive fertility rules 'lacking rationality' for the first time

A Japanese court called the law restricting women’s right to sterilisation “lacking rationality.”

The plaintiffs were seen celebrating the jurisdiction and took it as a step forward, AFP agency reports.

However, the Tokyo District Court did not find the sterilisation laws to be outright unconstitutional or illegal. It dismissed the five women claiming the restrictive policies were a threat to their bodily autonomy.

Unlike other countries, Japan has one of the strictest policies around voluntary sterilisation and induced abortion.

As per an article published by a Japanese scholar in the Taylor & Francis Online, both sterilisation and induced abortion are permitted in the cases where the mother or father has a hereditary disease, psychosis or leprosy. Both are allowed when the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother.

Flying to US to get fallopian tubes removed

Under the Japanese laws, a woman must have multiple children, subsequent pregnancies causing poor health, or a life threatening danger from pregnancy to qualify for sterilisation. Even then, permission from the spouse is needed.

The Japanese court told the plaintiffs to see sterilisation as the last method of birth control, inviting minimal interference from the state.

The AFP agency reported that a married Kajiya (27) flew to the United States to get her fallopian tubes removed. Under the new ruling, she feels less guilty of her decision, they said.

The presiding judge Masahiro Kamano acknowledged contraceptive freedom as a constitutional right for women, however, recognised sterilisation as just one of the methods to avoid pregnancy. The lawyer speaking for the plaintiffs expressed regret over the court not seeing it as a fundamental right to remove fertility altogether and as a conscious choice to be child-free.

Over 70 countries all over the world permit voluntary sterilisation as a method of contraception. 

As per a Japanese scholar, the terminology used for protecting sterilisation laws is ambiguous, with the guidelines not making it clear whether the word ‘several’ stands for one, two or three children. 

In 2024, Japan’s top court had repealed the eugenics law under which 16,500 disabled people were forcefully sterilised between the 1950s and 1990s.