Abortion in Japan

This page gives information of type abortion about the country Japan.
See all pages giving information on abortion for particular countries|See all pages giving information about Japan

Data sources

Abortion data is obtained from Johnston's archive, which in turn relies on a variety of sources. Data is not of high reliability.

Fertility data referenced on this page is drawn from the Human Fertility Database, which is of high reliability. The UN data and the HFD data correlate highly, even though the former is slightly less accurate, so the inconsistency in data sources should not affect broad conclusions. For more detailed fertility data, see the fertility in Japan page.

Qualitative history of relevant events

See Wikipedia:Abortion in Japan.

Year	Event	Postulated effects seen in abortion statistics
1869	abortion was banned nationwide, but punishment was rare except in cases of adultery or death to the mother
1880	ban on abortion was included in the penal code
1907	women could be incarcerated for up to a year for having an abortion; practitioners could be jailed for up to seven.
1923	doctors were granted legal permission to perform emergency abortions to save the mother's life; abortions performed under different, less life-threatening circumstances were still prosecuted.
1940	National Eugenic Law outlined a set of procedures doctors needed to follow in order to get an abortion.
1948	passage of Eugenic Protection Law legalizing abortion and facilitating the provision of family planning services	Likely huge increase, but no pre-1948 data available anyway.
1996	replacement of the Eugenic Protection Law by the Maternal Health Protection Law, making abortion illegal except in case the fetus had significant defects or in case of danger to the mother's health	No discernible effect, but probably because the law itself didn't change reality on the ground.
2006	abortion was officially made legal conditional to the mother's consent	No discernible effect, but probably because the law itself didn't change reality on the ground.

Abortion ratio and abortion rate

Year	Abortion ratio	Abortion ratio minus previous year's abortion ratio	Abortion rate	Abortion rate minus previous year's abortion rate
1947
1948
1949	91.3		4.9
1950	209.2	117.9	15.1	10.2
1951	298.6	89.4	21.3	6.2
1952	401.7	103.1	36.3	15
1953	571.8	170.1	47.7	11.4
1954	645.9	74.1	50.2	2.5
1955	693.4	47.5	55.5	5.3
1956	696.2	2.8	53.9	-1.6
1957	716.4	20.2	51.2	-2.7
1958	683.9	-32.5	50.6	-0.6
1959	677.1	-6.8	48.4	-2.2
1960	663.3	-13.8	46.7	-1.7
1961	652.6	-10.7	45.3	-1.4
1962	610.8	-41.8	42.1	-3.2
1963	576.3	-34.5	39.5	-2.6
1964	512.5	-63.8	42.1	2.6
1965	462.9	-49.6	33.4	-8.7
1966	596	133.1	31.5	-1.9
1967	386.3	-209.7	28.9	-2.6
1968	404.6	18.3	29.1	0.2
1969	393.9	-10.7	28.4	-0.7
1970	378.5	-15.4	28	-0.4
1971	369.7	-8.8	28.3	0.3
1972	359.4	-10.3	27.8	-0.5
1973	334.9	-24.5	26.4	-1.4
1974	334.9	0	25.6	-0.8
1975	353.9	19	25.2	-0.4
1976	362.4	8.5	25	-0.2
1977	365.4	3	24.2	-0.8
1978	361.7	-3.7	23.4	-0.8
1979	373.6	11.9	23.2	-0.2
1980	379.3	5.7	22.6	-0.6
1981	390.1	10.8	22.7	0.1
1982	389.5	-0.6	22.5	-0.2
1983	376.7	-12.8	21.5	-1
1984	381.9	5.2	21.4	-0.1
1985	384.3	2.4	17.8	-3.6
1986	381.7	-2.6	19.8	2
1987	369.6	-12.1	16	-3.8
1988	370	0.4	18.2	2.2
1989	374.5	4.5	14.9	-3.3
1990	373.9	-0.6	17	2.1
1991	356.7	-17.2	16.1	-0.9
1992	341.6	-15.1	15.4	-0.7
1993	325.5	-16.1	14.6	-0.8
1994	294.2	-31.3	14	-0.6
1995	289	-5.2	13.4	-0.6
1996	280.9	-8.1	13	-0.4
1997	283.9	3	11	-2
1998	277	-6.9	11	0
1999	286.4	9.4	11.3	0.3
2000	286.6	0.2	11.7	0.4
2001	291.8	5.2	11.8	0.1
2002	285.4	-6.4
2003	284.6	-0.8	13
2004	271.6	-13
2005	272.1	0.5
2006	252.9	-19.2
2007	235.5	-17.4
2008	222.1	-13.4
2009	212	-10.1
2010	198.5	-13.5
Mean	406.4306451613	1.7573770492
Median	369.65	-2.6
Standard deviation	186.4819215856	178.0449535548
Slope for best linear fit (for linear regression)	-5.6067613508	-0.8574775251
Multiplier for best logarithmic fit (for logarithmic regression)	0.9881171583

Relation between abortion and fertility

The third and fifth columns (abortion-adjusted birth and fertility measures) are not standard demographic variables but have simply been computed to give a better intuition about the maximum extent to which abortion availability could have directly affected fertility. In particular, note that abortions undertaken in a given year may substitute for a birth next year, so the year-to-year data has some inconsistencies. Also, because detailed age-specific abortion data was not available, the abortion-adjusted TFR does not take into account the age distribution of abortions but simply uses the abortion ratio to adjust the TFR (in the same way as for the CBR), therefore the measure is incorrect.

Year	Crude birth rate (CBR)	Abortion-adjusted crude birth rate (if every abortion had been substituted by a birth)	Total fertility rate (TFR)	Abortion-adjusted total fertility rate (Crude estimate without considering age distribution of mothers undergoing abortions)	Abortion ratio	Abortion rate
1947	34.65	34.65	4.566	4.566
1948	33.95	33.95	4.444	4.444
1949	33.42	36.471246	4.357	4.7547941	91.3	4.9
1950	28.42	34.365464	3.672	4.4401824	209.2	15.1
1951	25.55	33.17923	3.281	4.2607066	298.6	21.3
1952	23.6	33.08012	2.995	4.1980915	401.7	36.3
1953	21.67	34.060906	2.713	4.2642934	571.8	47.7
1954	20.27	33.362393	2.502	4.1180418	645.9	50.2
1955	19.58	33.156772	2.383	4.0353722	693.4	55.5
1956	18.63	31.600206	2.236	3.7927032	696.2	53.9
1957	17.38	29.831032	2.058	3.5323512	716.4	51.2
1958	18.18	30.613302	2.129	3.5850231	683.9	50.6
1959	17.71	29.701441	2.061	3.4565031	677.1	48.4
1960	17.33	28.824989	2.008	3.3399064	663.3	46.7
1961	16.99	28.077674	1.963	3.2440538	652.6	45.3
1962	17.14	27.609112	1.974	3.1797192	610.8	42.1
1963	17.4	27.42762	2.001	3.1541763	576.3	39.5
1964	17.81	26.937625	2.045	3.0930625	512.5	42.1
1965	18.72	27.385488	2.145	3.1379205	462.9	33.4
1966	13.85	22.1046	1.579	2.520084	596	31.5
1967	19.49	27.018987	2.224	3.0831312	386.3	28.9
1968	18.63	26.167698	2.127	2.9875842	404.6	29.1
1969	18.58	25.898662	2.119	2.9536741	393.9	28.4
1970	18.8	25.92	2.129	2.9348265	378.5	28
1971	19.21	26.311937	2.153	2.9489641	369.7	28.3
1972	19.3	26.23642	2.138	2.9063972	359.4	27.8
1973	19.35	25.830315	2.135	2.8500115	334.9	26.4
1974	18.52	24.722348	2.04	2.723196	334.9	25.6
1975	17.14	23.205846	1.9	2.57241	353.9	25.2
1976	16.34	22.261616	1.84	2.506816	362.4	25
1977	15.5	21.1637	1.786	2.4386044	365.4	24.2
1978	14.95	20.357415	1.774	2.4156558	361.7	23.4
1979	14.25	19.5738	1.751	2.4051736	373.6	23.2
1980	13.57	18.717101	1.731	2.3875683	379.3	22.6
1981	13.07	18.168607	1.726	2.3993126	390.1	22.7
1982	12.86	17.86897	1.755	2.4385725	389.5	22.5
1983	12.72	17.511624	1.788	2.4615396	376.7	21.5
1984	12.48	17.246112	1.8	2.48742	381.9	21.4
1985	11.92	16.500856	1.757	2.4322151	384.3	17.8
1986	11.45	15.820465	1.719	2.3751423	381.7	19.8
1987	11.1	15.20256	1.689	2.3132544	369.6	16
1988	10.79	14.7823	1.657	2.27009	370	18.2
1989	10.2	14.0199	1.576	2.166212	374.5	14.9
1990	9.96	13.684044	1.543	2.1199277	373.9	17
1991	9.95	13.499165	1.537	2.0852479	356.7	16.1
1992	9.8	13.14768	1.506	2.0204496	341.6	15.4
1993	9.61	12.738055	1.464	1.940532	325.5	14.6
1994	9.98	12.916116	1.507	1.9503594	294.2	14
1995	9.55	12.30995	1.426	1.838114	289	13.4
1996	9.68	12.399112	1.43	1.831687	280.9	13
1997	9.54	12.248406	1.392	1.7871888	283.9	11
1998	9.61	12.27197	1.388	1.772476	277	11
1999	9.39	12.079296	1.347	1.7327808	286.4	11.3
2000	9.49	12.209834	1.359	1.7484894	286.6	11.7
2001	9.31	12.026658	1.336	1.7258448	291.8	11.8
2002	9.16	11.774264	1.318	1.6941572	285.4
2003	8.91	11.445786	1.29	1.657134	284.6	13
2004	8.81	11.202796	1.288	1.6378208	271.6
2005	8.43	10.723803	1.254	1.5952134	272.1
2006	8.67	10.862643	1.313	1.6450577	252.9
2007	8.64	10.67472	1.331	1.6444505	235.5
2008	8.66	10.583386	1.36	1.662056	222.1
2009	8.5	10.302	1.361	1.649532	212