First Practicing Catholic Prime Minister failed to defend the Lives of the Unborn

Ex-prime minister, Aso Taro making a speech for the election campaign in August.

In Japan, it is very difficult to spread a movement to defend the life of the unborn. The notion that it is woman who decide to give birth or not has taken root deeply since the legislation of the Eugenic Protection Act in 1948. 　

When Aso Taro, who became the church-going Catholic prime minister, so some Catholics and I, at first, expected him to act according to the teachings of the Catholic Church in this field. Moreover, there was also a Catholic politician, Yosano Kaoru who was appointed to finance minister and state minister for financial services state minister in charge of economic and fiscal policy in the cabinet. Mr. Yosano's grandmother is Yosano Akiko, a very famous poet who became a Catholic around the end of her life.

However, this expectation was soon proved to be vain when Mr. Aso appointed Obuchi Yuko, the daughter of the deceased former prime minister, Obuchi Keizo to state minister in charge of population and gender equality.

Unlike her predecessors, Ms. Obuchi herself was not a feminist and in favor of a baby hatch started with the efforts of some prol-ife activists and a doctor at Jikei hospital, run by Catholics in Kumamoto Prefecture in May of 2007.

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She was not a best person to take this position all the same. In LDP, there was a suitable person. Yamatani Eriko, a conservative Catholic politician, worked for pro-life cause and also helped to get a permission for a baby hatch from the ministry of welfare and labor. Thus it was not a good decision that Mr. Aso did not chose her.

There are some conservative politicians against feminism in Liberal Democratic Party, any prime minister have never chosen a person who would take some effective measures for declining birth rate in Japan. I have to say that even these conservative politicians are as selfish as liberal ones in regard to this problem. If they are really worried about the future of their country, they should have taken any pro-life policy.

I myself wrote a letter to Mr. Aso urging to take actions against abortion with some booklets published by a pro-life group, but I had no response from him and he did not take any action for this cause. My friend also sent a similar letter to him but with the same result.

LDP lost in a general election in this summer and became a party out of power because Some policies on labor issues and social welfare that LDP taken gave people very bad impressions. Democratic Party of Japan took the power and its leader, Hatoyama Yukio became a prime minister.

Unfortunately, this is no good in respect of pro-life movement in Japan. DPJ has a draft to relax regulations on abortion. although not all of the DPJ member are feminists, but iso far it seems to be not easy for the party to abandon this draft.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us. Have mercy on us.