Japan to finally get abortion pill, but partner consent required

After much legal wrangling and media speculation, Japan is apparently set to approve the abortion pill, but it would still require women to seek their partner’s consent beforehand.

We have to be careful here to draw a distinction between the morning-after pill (which is already available in Japan, but a prescription from a doctor is needed and it’s expensive) and the abortion pill.

The latter is reportedly to become available in Japan (as a two-drug combo, Mifepristone and Misoprostol, made by British pharmaceutical firm Linepharma International), though decades after women have had access to it in other countries, and with much of the same conditions that a surgical abortion has: it will cost ¥100,000, around the same as a surgical abortion, and is not covered by national health insurance; third-party consent (in this case, the partner) is required in most circumstances; and medical supervision is required, perhaps even hospitalization.

These conditions are, campaigners say, likely to mean the option remains off the cards for some women, who will be forced to undergo pregnancies they do not want. For context, there were 145,000 surgical abortions in Japan last year, up from 140,000 in 2020. Only two kinds of surgical procedures are available: the dilation and curettage method, in which the contents of the uterus are scraped out with a metal instrument, and the dilation and evacuation, in which the contents of the uterus are sucked out by a tube.

“Spousal consent is unnecessary for abortion, and should be removed from the [1948] Maternal Protection Law,” said a professor of humanities and social sciences quoted by the Guardian. The expense is also a major concern. “The reality is that for some women, abortion is not possible for financial reasons. [. . .] Contraception, abortion, pregnancy, and childbirth should all be publicly funded.” The average cost of an abortion pill overseas is ¥740, according to data from the World Health Organization.

After conducting a clinical trial in Japan last year, the Linepharma International abortion pill is likely to gain approval by the end of 2022, though senior health ministry officials maintain that a partner sign-off will be mandatory.

The Japanese parliament is notoriously male-dominated. As a “fun” demonstration of what this means for legal priorities, the country took four decades to approve oral contraceptives (available since 1999) but only half a year to approve Viagra. Like we say, priorities.