- Convenor:
-
Astghik Hovhannisyan
(Russian-Armenian University)
Send message to Convenor
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- Law
Short Abstract
This panel reexamines Japan's now-defunct Eugenic Protection Law (1948-1996), focusing on the meaning of "eugenics" under the law, the role of the Japan Association for Maternal Welfare in promoting sterilization policies, and the features of the subsequent redress movement.
Long Abstract
In 2018, Sato Yumi became first person to file a lawsuit against the Japanese government over forced sterilization carried out under the Eugenic Protection Law (1948-1996). Her case was followed by lawsuits brought by thirty-eight other victims across Japan. After initial defeats at the district courts, the litigation culminated in claimants’ victory, with the Supreme Court of Japan ruling the law as unconstitutional in 2024. These lawsuits attracted significant domestic and international media attention, prompting renewed historical inquiry into forced sterilizations and the publication of numerous scholarly and journalistic articles. Nevertheless, numerous important aspects of the law remain insufficiently examined.
This panel brings together three perspectives to reassess the Eugenic Protection Law.
The first paper reconsiders what “eugenics” meant under the 1948 law by analyzing Diet debates, legislative structure, and policy implementation. It argues that eugenics was gradually narrowed to a reproductive health framework, obscuring its ties with family planning and population policies.
The second paper focuses on the Japan Association for Maternal Welfare (JAMW), tracing its institutional trajectory and lobbying activities. The paper highlights the JAMW’s central role in promoting sterilization policies and shaping both “old” and “new” eugenics, an aspect that remains underexplored in existing scholarship.
The third paper examines the redress movement that emerged in 2018 and culminated in the plaintiffs’ victory in 2024. It analyzes the reasons why redress efforts emerged decades after the law’s abolition, as well as how media coverage, activist networks, and litigation strategies succeeded in holding the state responsible.
Together, these papers examine the conceptual, institutional, and political aspects of eugenics in postwar Japan.
| Abstract in Japanese (if needed) |
Accepted papers
Paper short abstract
The primary motivation behind the Eugenics Protection Act of 1948, namely reducing fertility, is now tending to disappear under the ethical condemnation of eugenics. This paper seeks to analyse the context in which the word yūsei was used during the drafting and implementation of the 1948 law.
Paper long abstract
The Eugenic Protection Law (Yūsei hogohō) was enacted on 13 July 1948 and amended several times before undergoing a fundamental revision in 1996: the word ‘eugenics (yūsei)’ was removed from its title and content.
This process has led to a hasty conclusion that eugenics has disappeared, at least within the framework of the 1948 law. In this paper, I analyse the context in which the word yūsei was used during the drafting and implementation of the 1948 law, and propose the hypothesis that its scope was gradually narrowed down to eugenics related to the health status of prospective parents. This obscured its links with hybrid movements promoted by the authorities with the active participation of the populations concerned, such as the “movement for à new life (Shinseikatsu undō)” and family planning (kazoku keikaku).
The primary motivation behind these policies, namely reducing fertility, is now tending to disappear under the ethical condemnation of eugenics, whereas without this legislative mechanism, the decline in fertility could not have taken place in a manner consistent with the law (e.g. abortion, sterilisation). It is therefore essential to situate it in relation to today's declining birth rate and the pro-natalist policies pursued since the 1990s, which are completely disconnected from the eugenic model of reproduction established after the war.
What did ‘eugenics’ mean under the 1948 law? This paper seeks to answer this question by examining the discussions that took place in the Diet during the drafting of the law, its structure, and the points that were removed in 1996, in order to highlight the types of reproduction that were encouraged, and conversely repressed, under Japan’s broad eugenics policy.
Paper short abstract
This paper examines the trajectory of the Japan Association for Maternal Welfare (JAMW), an organization designated under the Eugenic Protection Law, and argues that JAMW is indispensable for understanding both old and new eugenics in Japan.
Paper long abstract
This paper examines the trajectory of the Japan Association for Maternal Welfare (JAMW), an organization designated under the Eugenic Protection Law, and argues that JAMW is indispensable for understanding both old and new eugenics in Japan.
JAMW was founded in 1949 under Article 12 of the 1948 law, with Taniguchi Yasaburō, a gynecologist and member of the House of Councilors, as its first president. In 1952, Taniguchi led a major revision of the law, incorporating input from JAMW’s regional branches and its Tokyo headquarters. A key change was the introduction of a provision allowing sterilization for non-hereditary mental disorders with guardian consent. This revision aimed to address psychiatrists’ reluctance, which JAMW viewed as limiting the number of psychiatrists available. Throughout the 1950s, Taniguchi repeatedly pressed the Ministry of Health and Welfare during parliamentary sessions to enforce sterilization on individuals with intellectual disabilities, citing JAMW’s position. Other JAMW executives criticized psychiatrists and prison doctors for their passive stance and supported increasing the number of sterilizations.
From the 1960s onward, religious groups such as Seichō no Ie began calling for revisions to the law’s abortion provisions. In the 1970s and the 1980s, parliamentary efforts to restrict abortions intensified. JAMW opposed these moves, arguing that the law was both an abortion law and a eugenics law. In 1972, the JAMW attempted to introduce a fetal provision permitting abortion for disability, but strong opposition from women’s and disability rights groups blocked it. Nevertheless, the JAMW successfully lobbied the Liberal Democratic Party to prevent revisions.
Despite its central role in promoting sterilization and shaping policy, JAMW’s influence remains underexplored, even after lawsuits and historical inquiries in 2018. This paper challenges interpretations of the Eugenic Protection Law system that omit the JAMW.
Paper short abstract
This paper analyzes the redress movement surrounding Japan’s Eugenic Protection Law, culminating in the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling. It examines why redress emerged decades after the law's abolition and how media, activists, and legal professionals succeeded in holding the state accountable.
Paper long abstract
In July 2024, Japan’s Supreme Court ruled that the former Eugenic Protection Law (EPL) was unconstitutional, ordering the government to compensate the victims of forced sterilizations carried out under the law. The EPL (1848-1996) legislation that allowed abortion under various circumstances, as well as voluntary and involuntary sterilizations of people with a range of conditions and disabilities.
The first lawsuits against the government were filed in 2018, but initially they were not successful, as district courts ruled against the plaintiffs on the grounds of the statute of limitations. The enactment of the 2019 “Lump-Sum Payment Law,” which offered a one-time payment of 3.2 million yen to victims, may also have contributed to the initial defeats. However, beginning in 2022, high courts started ruling in favor of plaintiffs, ultimately leading to their victory in 2024.
This paper analyzes the redress movement surrounding the EPL, focusing on three key questions. First, it examines the reasons behind the delayed emergence of the redress movement, which began almost two decades after the law’s abolition. Second, it analyzes the movement’s tactics, which, although initially unsuccessful, eventually lead to victory for the plaintiffs. Finally, it considers the roles played by the news media, legal professionals, activists and redress claimants in holding the Japanese government accountable for past wrongdoing.