Right to Abortion does not Conflict with Liberation of Disabled People

In 1973, Tomoko Yonezu, Lib Shinjuku Center, said that women were confronted with disabled people by the Establishment. She went on to say that women and disabled people must fight together against the Establishment which indirectly forces women to abort disabled fetuses. (Yonezu was/is a disabled woman.)

In the same year, Lib Shinjuku Center published the article, “the Right to Abortion does not Conflict with the Liberation of “Disabled People.”” They said that women and disabled people should cooperate to build society where women are delighted to give birth to their babies whether babies are disabled or not. Here the “Paradigm of United Front between Women and Disabled People” was formed, and this paradigm made the basis of the Japanese bioethics movement in 1970s and 80s.
The important points are as follows.

1) Japanese bioethics started as grass-root movements. It was created by minority groups such as women and disabled people in their process of fighting against the Establishment. The year of the birth of Japanese bioethics was 1972-1973.

2) They started their bioethical thoughts by gazing at their own “inner eugenic thought.” Selective abortion and eugenic thinking were something they had to fight against and overcome. They were thinking that reducing the number of disabled children was not the answer.

3) They believed that our society based on utilitarianism and the principle of efficiency must be changed into more humane and less competitive one. In such a society, for the first time, women can give birth to disabled babies and raise them embraced by a sense of security.

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Disability Movement and Inner Eugenic Thought
(2002)
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