Everything changes, except the avant-garde, or so the saying goes. Now in Japan, perhaps it’s rather nothing changes, except for sexual mores.
For years, Japan seemed to lag behind other major nations in the Global North in terms of access to emergency birth control or even use of contraception.
Basically, people just don’t use condoms, inspired by the Fuji-sized mountains of porn they consume in which condoms are never seen (but generally are used), leading to lots of shotgun weddings (it seems like most celebrities seem to marry this way) and a STDs/STIs crisis, especially syphilis — in some ways, a more serious epidemic than Covid was in Japan because it is less known.
But in a country where society notoriously never changes, are we witnessing a sort of sea change in access to birth control measures?
Last year, after a long efforts by campaigners, Japan finally approved the abortion pill, though consent from the partner is required — which is a major caveat if you think you’re pregnant from a rape.
The morning-after pill (called, in case you need to know, kinkyu hininyaku in Japanese) has long been available, but with a doctor’s prescription. It requires a woman to act very quickly if she suspects she has become pregnant through intercourse, securing an appointment with an appropriate medical specialist, getting the prescription, going to the right pharmacy, and waiting for the drugs to be prepared. That’s a fair amount of legwork to cover in the 72-hour window after intercourse.
Now that, too, is set to change as the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has now approved a proposal to let women buy morning-after pills without a medical prescription.
The ministry conducted a review and collected public feedback, around 98% of which supported providing access to morning-after pills without a prescription.
Non-prescription sales of the morning-after pill are set to begin on a trial basis this summer nationwide at drugstores with trained pharmacists on site.
It’s been a long time coming, with the government previously rejecting a similar proposal in 2017 over fears of “misuse” of the drug. We wouldn’t be surprised if the (almost certainly male) politicos and mandarins thought keeping the status quo might be a way to solve Japan’s chronic demographic crisis.
The morning-after pill is already available to buy at pharmacies in around 90 countries and some provide access to it for free if you are below a certain age.
