Japan plans to introduce a ban with penalties on implanting a genome-edited fertilized human egg into the womb of a human or another animal amid concerns over “designer babies.” A Japanese government expert panel broadly approved a proposal, including the ban, at a meeting on Thursday 4th December.
Sohei Kamiya, leader of the populist minor opposition Sanseito party, has courted controversy ahead of Japan’s House of Councillors election with his comment that “only young women can have children.” “Only young women can have children”, Sanseito leader, Kamiya said. “When I say that, some people call it discrimination. But it’s not. It’s reality. Men and, sorry to say, older women cannot have children,” Kamiya said during a stump speech in Tokyo on Thursday.
The number of births in Japan fell below 700,000 for the first time in 2024, declining 5.7 percent from the previous year to 686,061, government data showed Wednesday, highlighting a continued trend of delayed marriages and childbirths. Japan’s total fertility rate — the average number of children a woman is estimated to bear in her lifetime — also fell to a record-low 1.15, down from 1.20 in 2023, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. Both the number of births and the fertility rate have decreased for nine consecutive years. The pace of Japan’s declining birthrate is now 15 years ahead of government projections. The full-year figures exclude babies born to foreign nationals.
The city of Izumisano in the western Japan prefecture of Osaka has decided to introduce a baby hatch system in cooperation with a local medical institution. The city government aims to start operating the system in fiscal 2026 to allow parents to drop off their babies anonymously if they have difficulties raising them.
Japan’s total fertility rate fell to a record low of 1.20 in 2023 from 1.26 in 2022, down for the eighth straight year, the health ministry said Wednesday. In Tokyo, the total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, stood at 0.99, falling below 1 for the first time in the country.
A Japanese government panel Wednesday proposed that fertility treatment be covered by the country’s public health insurance program as part of efforts to tackle the declining birthrate.
The plan will be proposed on Wednesday at a meeting of the Central Social Insurance Medical Council, which advises the health minister. Details of the plan will be decided in or after January.
The first oral argument in a lawsuit in which hearing-impaired people in Kansai sought compensation for damages from the government was held at the Osaka High Court on the 30th, alleging that they were forced to undergo fertility surgery under the former Eugenic Protection Law.
An online survey, conducted in January and February, receiving responses from roughly 47,000 national public employees, showed 1.8 percent were undergoing fertility treatment while 10.1 percent said they have experience with it and 3.7 percent said they had considered it.
Among people who have experienced fertility treatment or were considering it, 62.5 percent said it was “very difficult” to balance it with work while 11.3 percent said it was “impossible,” the most common reasons being the need to make frequent visits to the doctor, cost and scheduling conflicts with work.
The National Personnel Authority’s new scheme aims to ease the burden by enabling full-time and part-time national public employees to take five days of paid leave, with five additional days available if necessary.
The time off can be broken up and used flexibly, such as by taking a few hours off to see the doctor during work, for example.
Increasing access to fertility treatment has been a focus for Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who pushed for it to be covered by Japan’s public health insurance from next April.
The number of babies born in Japan fell to a record low of 840,832 in 2020, with the recent downward trend exacerbated by the social and economic impact of COVID-19.
The total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman is expected to give birth to in her lifetime, stood at 1.34, down from the previous year by 0.02 point.
Barrier Free Japan