Women’s Rights | Medical abortion becomes legal for the first time in Japan

Foreign countries|Women’s rights

Medicinal abortion is becoming legal in Japan. News agency AFP and Japanese By Kyodo News According to the Ministry of Health, on Friday, for the first time, an oral abortion drug was approved for manufacture and sale in Japan.

According to Kyodo News, the drug may enter the market as early as spring.

Abortion, i.e. termination of pregnancy, can be done either with drugs or surgically by scraping. Scraping is an older method. For example, in Finland and the United States, medical abortion has been possible since 2000. France legalized medical abortion more than 30 years ago, in 1988.

By far the majority of abortions in Finland are performed with the help of drugs: it is an effective and safe way to interrupt the progress of pregnancy in the early stages of pregnancy, up to weeks 9–12.

Scraping typically requires anesthesia, and it is a heavier and more dangerous process anyway. Until now, only surgical abortions up to week 22 have been legal in Japan. AFP says that abortion has usually also required the approval of the partner, which is not required in Finland, for example.

Surgical abortion is also more expensive than medication.

of Japan On Friday, the Ministry of Health approved Mefeego Pack, an abortion pill from the British manufacturer Linepharma. According to the company, the medicine is used in 80 countries, and the World Health Organization WHO has assessed Mefeego Pack as safe. The medicine can be used up to week 9.

Because the side effects of taking Mefeego Pack can include, for example, bleeding and pain in the lower abdomen, medical abortion in Japan must be performed in a hospital.

Discharge and pain in the lower abdomen are normal in connection with a medical abortion, and in Finland, for example, a medical abortion can be partially performed at home.

Now activists in Japan hope that the approval of the abortion pill will also make it easier to get birth control pills. At the moment, the birth control pill can only be obtained with a doctor’s permission, and it must be taken in a pharmacy in front of a pharmacist.