Women's Rights?: The Politics of Eugenic Abortion in Modern Japan
by Kato, MasaeFormat: Paperback
Pub. Date: 2009-06-15
Publisher(s): Amsterdam Univ Pr
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Summary
This volume explores the concept of Japanese reproductive rights and liberties in light of recent developments in disability studies. Masae Kato asks important questions about what constitutes personhood and how, in the twenty-first century, we come to understand eugenic abortion and other bioethical arguments. Tracing the origin and influence of the concept of a "right," the author places the term in local social and historical contexts in order to determine that it still carries overtones of Anglo-American philosophy, rather than universal truth. Digging deeply into Japanese debates on selective abortion, Women's Right? discusses how this charged term can be both de-Westernized and de-masculinized, especially in its appropriations by the Japanese women's movement and disability scholars.
Author Biography
Masae Kato is a research fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies at Leiden University.
Table of Contents
| Acknowledgments | p. 11 |
| Introduction | p. 13 |
| Problems of rights: The issue of rights in an international context | p. 15 |
| The aims of this book with regard to the concept of 'rights' | p. 20 |
| Related research | p. 22 |
| On target groups: Social movement organisations of women, disabled people, and anti-abortion activists | p. 28 |
| On the structure | p. 32 |
| Historical Background | p. 35 |
| Laws on abortion between the Meiji period and the end of the Second World War | p. 35 |
| The Ie household system and women's position during the Meiji period | p. 36 |
| Towards the growing militarism of the 1930s | p. 38 |
| After the Second World War | p. 42 |
| Abortion Debates in the 1970s | p. 59 |
| The attempt to revise the Eugenic Protection Law: The draft proposal and those behind it | p. 59 |
| Reaction of women to the proposed revisions to the Eugenic Protection Law | p. 65 |
| The encounter between the movements of women and disabled people | p. 66 |
| Disabled people's arguments against the proposal | p. 68 |
| In search of movement rhetoric | p. 70 |
| Philosophical contribution of the Women's Liberation Movement | p. 77 |
| Debate inside the Women's Liberation Movement about the concept of an individual political 'right' | p. 78 |
| On women's selfishness and the right to abortion | p. 85 |
| Genealogy of the concept of rights | p. 85 |
| Political philosophy in Japan before the concept of 'rights' was introduced | p. 96 |
| A rights analysis of the Japanese abortion debate during the 1970s | p. 106 |
| Towards the 1980s: The 1975 UN Women's Conference and the solidarity of Japanese women | p. 114 |
| Abortion Debates in the 1980s | p. 117 |
| The 1982 attempt to repeal the economic reasons clause and the anti-abortion argument | p. 117 |
| The reaction of the disabled people's movement | p. 131 |
| Rights in the 1980s | p. 138 |
| Analysis of the Discourse on the Concept of Individual, Political Rights in the 1980s | p. 141 |
| On the frequent use of the term 'right' in the 1980s | p. 142 |
| On a debate about the Mizuko business and the usage of the term 'right' in Japan | p. 155 |
| The 1980s in comparison with the 1970s | p. 158 |
| From the 1980s into the 1990s | p. 159 |
| The Debate on the Notion of Individual, Political Rights after the Repeal of the Eugenic Protection Law | p. 167 |
| The main problem after the Eugenic Protection Law: Reproductive technologies | p. 167 |
| Individual doctors and their perspectives on women's right to self-determination | p. 175 |
| Reproductive technologies use women's bodies | p. 187 |
| What can be learned from these debates? | p. 192 |
| Liberated Individuals? | p. 195 |
| The meaning of the 'self' with 'women's right to self-determination' | p. 195 |
| Liberalism | p. 198 |
| On the meaning of 'women's right to self-determination' as used by the women's movement | p. 201 |
| 'Who is the self' in women's right to self-determination | p. 215 |
| Conclusion | p. 219 |
| 1970s: 'Women's right to abortion' is women's egoism | p. 219 |
| The 1980s: International arguments, new rhetoric, and a new phase in movements' activities | p. 231 |
| The possibility of enriching the concept of 'rights' | p. 235 |
| Crimes of abortion (Chapter 29 of the Japanese Penal Code) | p. 241 |
| The Eugenic Protection Law | p. 243 |
| The Law to Protect the Mother's Body | p. 257 |
| A demand letter from Osaka Aoi shiba no kai to the Hyogo Prefecture | p. 261 |
| A leaflet written and distributed by TANAKA Mitsu, on behalf of the Women's Liberation Movement (Tokyo, 1973) | p. 263 |
| Notes | p. 269 |
| Bibliography | p. 313 |
| Index | p. 337 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
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