The leader of a minor Japanese opposition party apologised on Sunday for mentioning a hypothetical idea that women have their uteruses removed after turning 30 so they feel they have a “time limit” on childbirth.
He seemed to suggest during a discussion on the country’s declining birth rate that this might make women choose to have children earlier.
Naoki Hyakuta, novelist and head of the Conservative Party of Japan, brought up the controversial idea in a YouTube programme streamed on Friday, although he emphasised that he did not support it.
In a speech in Nagoya on Sunday, Mr Hyakuta said the remarks were bitter. “I will retract them and apologise as there were people who found them unpleasant,” he said.
He later apologised on X, saying his remarks were “undeniably something extremely harsh” even though he had emphasised these ideas were “science fiction” and “something that should not happen”.
“I apologise to those who were offended,” he said.
When Kaori Arimoto, a senior member of Mr Hyakuta’s party who was with him on the programme, suggested that his comments were inappropriate, even as a “science fiction” scenario, he replied, “I was explaining about the time limitation (faced by women in giving birth) in a plain way”.
Ms Arimoto said that social values were rapidly changing and many people no longer equated happiness with having children. She asked Mr Hyakuta for his views on restoring these values.
Mr Hyakuta responded that reversing this trend would require changes to the social structure and suggested, hypothetically, that if women felt a “time limit” on childbirth, they might choose to have children earlier.
Mr Hyakuta previously sparked controversy with remarks denying the occurrence of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre by the Japanese forces in China and describing US air raids on Japan during World War II as “genocide”.
The number of births in Japan in the first half of 2024 fell to the lowest since 1969, preliminary government data from September showed, underscoring the daunting task the country faced in tackling depopulation.
Japan recorded 350,074 births between January and June, 5.7 per cent fewer compared to the same period last year, the health ministry’s preliminary report said. This continued the trend of declining births over the past few years, with the total number of births in 2023 also being the lowest since records began in 1899.
I want you to know the current state of Japanese politicians.
— ⁑リコマイ ⁑ (@sakuraironoharu) November 10, 2024
Naoki Hyakuta, leader of the far-right Conservative Party of Japan with 3 seats in the House of Representatives@BBCWorld @bbcnewsjapan @BBC @CNN @NBCNews @ABC @CBSNews @FoxNews
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Another Japanese politician, Yuichiro Tamaki, apologised on Monday after confirming a tabloid report of his affair with a model.
“I apologise for the trouble caused,” the leader of the Democratic Party for the People said at a press conference after SmartFlash revealed his affair on Monday. “The facts reported this morning are basically true.”
His party’s lawmakers backed Mr Tamaki to stay on as the leader.
Additional reporting by agencies.
