{"id":5217,"date":"2022-12-20T23:59:06","date_gmt":"2022-12-20T14:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.igs.ocha.ac.jp\/en\/?p=5217"},"modified":"2025-10-23T14:15:43","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T05:15:43","slug":"20221220-2","status":"publish","type":"reports","link":"https:\/\/www2.igs.ocha.ac.jp\/en\/reports\/20221220-2\/","title":{"rendered":"International Symposium \u201cReproductive Justice in the Era of Political Backlash\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Event Details<\/p><\/div>\n

2022.12.20 IGS International Symposium
\n<\/strong> \u201cReproductive Justice in the Era of Political Backlash\u201d
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Women\u2019s bodies are a battleground. To understand how the law, politics, and social movements have worked to enable and\/or disable reproduction, Ki-young SHIN organized an international symposium titled \u201cReproductive Justice in the Era of Political Backlash\u201d on December 22nd, 2022. In her opening remarks, she notes that it was women of color who had coined the term \u201creproductive justice\u201d in their fight against forced sterilization, highlighting how structural barriers can obstruct one\u2019s right to self-determination.<\/p>\n

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The first presenter, Lisa C. IKEMOTO, presented three conceptual frameworks that help detangle the current ideological struggle between fetal personhood and women\u2019s bodily autonomy: reproductive health, rights, and justice. Whereas reproductive health focuses on the delivery of healthcare services, reproductive rights ensures that access to such services are protected through law and legislation. <\/span>Reproductive justice, however, adopts an <\/span>intersectional approach to address the root causes of oppression \u2013\u2013 namely, how structural inequality has worked to stratify reproduction access based on race, poverty, disability, and immigration. These three models operate in tandem with local community organizing efforts to expand access to reproductive health care. Not only has the Dobbs v. Jackson decision to overturn Roe v. Wade criminalized pregnant bodies and medical care, but it has also put other legislation based on the right to privacy, such as sexual privacy, same-sex marriage, and contraception, at risk of a similar fate. \u201cWe are in a civil war over abortion\u201d she argued, but the fervor of the Green Wave Movement in Latin America and its influence on feminist movements in the United States can serve as a hope for the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second presenter, Misako IWAMOTO, contextualizes the backlash against reproductive rights in Japan by highlighting the government\u2019s numerous failures to adequately address, compensate, and memorialize both the victims of military sexual slavery during the Asia-Pacific War and victims of the 1948 Eugenics Protection Law that had legalized forced sterilizations and abortions against people with disabilities and transgender people. Against this political backdrop, it is no surprise that the state, rather than providing medical coverage for contraception, abortion, pregnancy, and childbirth, subjects them to consumption tax and strict institutional regulations instead \u2013\u2013 in fact, access to abortion still requires spousal consent. Additionally, the coalition between Japan\u2019s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, the Unification Church, and municipal government groups, have worked to delegitimize the work of activists by claiming that feminism and self-determination are \u201ccommunist\u201d threats to national sovereignty. This political and religious right-wing alliance has blocked separate-surname movements and the promotion of LGBTQIA rights while simultaneously blaming the younger generation for the low birth rate. Lastly, she expressed the dire need for coalition-building as the Unification Church\u2019s current agenda to pass the \u201cFamily Education\u201d law, a nationalist reinterpretation of education that educates children to put the family before the individual, is gaining traction and threatening constitutional reform.<\/p>\n

During the second half of the event, four specialists provided their responses to the presenters. The first comment was from Sachi TAKAYA who researches reproductive rights for migrant women. Within the context of economic globalization and Japan\u2019s exploitation of migrant women to combat the low birth rate, she raised the question of \u201creproduction of nation\u201d and how it may pertain to reproductive justice.<\/p>\n

The second commentator was Yuriko IINO, who explained that the reproductive health\/rights\/justice frameworks are not mutually exclusive but are inextricably linked with one another. Considering the recent women\u2019s rights movements in Japan have suffered interventions by insidious conservatism, she warned against a \u201cfeminism for the majority\u201d and stressed the need for healthcare expansion to include migrant workers and people with disabilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat comes to mind when you think of \u2018justice?\u201d asked Yukako OHASHI, the third commentator.
\nIn Japan, where \u201cjustice\u201d is redefined by patriarchal terms, it is difficult for reproductive justice to then take hold when women\u2019s bodily autonomy has historically been undermined by misogynistic and antiquated laws. \u201cMy body, my choice,\u201d she argued, but that can only be realized until feminism becomes intersectional by forming coalitions and including transwomen.<\/p>\n

Lastly, Rie HOGETSU explained how Japan\u2019s current criminalization of abortion is a remnant of post-modern policies on population control, which she defined to be a manifestation of biopolitics \u2013\u2013 a method of control firmly linked to influencing people\u2019s behavior through soft power. Because this is further expressed through the pro-life or pro-choice debate, she advocated for an education reform that can redefine what constitutes self-determination to avoid instilling individualizing narratives within women\u2019s consciousness.<\/p>\n

Finally, through questions pertaining to challenges for Asian American solidarity and the medical establishment in Japan, the Q&A session reaffirmed the need for international cooperation and intersectional approaches to reproductive justice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Misha CADE (Ph.D. Student at The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences)<\/p>\n

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\"\"\u300aEvent Details\u300b
\nIGS International Symposium \u201cReproductive Justice in the Era of Political Backlash\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u3010Date\/ Time\u3011Tuesday, December 20th, 2022 16:00-19:15
\n\u3010Venue\u3011Onsite+Zoom Webinar
\n\u3010Presenter\u3011
\nIKEMOTO, Lisa C.<\/strong> \u00a0(Professor, University of California-Davis)
\n\u201cReproductive Rights and Justice in the U.S. After Roe and Dobbs\u201d
\nIWAMOTO, Misako<\/strong> (Professor, Mie University)
\n\u201cPolitical Right & Religious Right and Anti-Reproductive Rights in Japan\u201d
\n\u3010Discussant\u3011
\nTAKAYA, Sachi<\/strong> (Professor, The University \u00a0of Tokyo)
\nIINO, Yuriko<\/strong> (Professor, The University \u00a0of Tokyo)
\nOHASHI, Yukako<\/strong> (SOSHIREN\uff08Women\u2019s Network for Reproductive Freedom\uff09)
\nHOGETSU, Rie<\/strong> (Ochanomizu University)
\n\u3010Opening Remarks and introduction\u3011
\nSHIN, Ki-young<\/strong> (Professor, Ochanomizu University)
\n\u3010Moderator\u3011
\nMOTOYAMA, Hisako<\/strong> (Ochanomizu University)
\n\u3010Organizer\u3011Institute for Gender Studies, Ochanomizu University
\n\u3010Co-Organizer\u3011Institute for Global Leadership, Ochanomizu University
\n\u3010Language\u3011English and Japanese (Simultaneous interpreting)
\n\u3010Number of attendees\u3011306<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","reports_category":[129],"class_list":["post-5217","reports","type-reports","status-publish","hentry","reports_category-reports-2022"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.igs.ocha.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reports\/5217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.igs.ocha.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reports"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.igs.ocha.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/reports"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.igs.ocha.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"reports_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.igs.ocha.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reports_category?post=5217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}