Quote:
Originally Posted by dogsbody70
I guess on an American Base there will be plenty of contraceptives available.
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No, in
Japan there are plenty of contraceptives available.
Japan is a modern country. Things like that are not difficult to come by at all. They are surely available at least to the same levels as they are in the US and (I assume) the UK.
Not to mention that there seems to be less embarrassment about buying them in general. It`s not taboo for people to be having sex even at younger ages, so there isn`t any stigma attached to picking up a box of condoms.
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Regarding abortion in Japan.
It is NOT as simple and easy as things seem to make it look. I had to have one the end of last year for medical reasons... (ie. the baby had attached at the opening to the right fallopian tube due to severe uterine scarring caused by the horrific events of my last pregnancy.)
You would think that with the opinion of two different doctors being that there was virtually no chance of the baby surviving, and that to leave it past the 10th week or so would be risking my life... That getting a procedure done would be easy.
It`s not. Japan has some very strict policies on getting abortions the normal route. First, no major hospitals perform them. There is a policy of "save the life at all costs" in normal hospitals. They are only done by private clinics unless the death of the mother is eminent. You NEED the permission of the father. He has to fill out a number of forms and identify himself as the father. In the case that he cannot be located, I was told that the parents would have to be notified. This was regardless of age and I believe it had something to do with potential complications. I also had to present my "reasons" for the procedure. There was also a minimum week wait. No religious hoops, but still hoops all the same.
There are indeed women who are turned away because they cannot go through the hoops. In the past it was fairly common for a regular obstetrician to offer it as part of their services, but there has been a huge crackdown on those who did this without going through the proper paperwork. Now there are a handful of obstetricians offering the service and many dedicated clinics. (There are doctors who still offer it secretly, but once the rumor goes out they tend to be cracked down on pretty promptly. From what I`ve heard, for not going through the hoops they would charge twice the regular fee.)
In my case we chose to go to a private clinic to have the procedure done because the hospital would only do so once my life was in direct danger. To me, personally, removing a tiny speck and removing a formed baby are very different things regardless of the necessity. We found a private clinic and paid out of pocket. (Insurance would only cover it once it was deemed necessary to save my life.)
Which brings me to another point. It is
expensive. I don`t know what it costs in other countries, but it was a 400,000yen deal for us. This is NOT the type of money you can just come up with out of the blue, especially if you`re young and are keeping it a secret from your parents.
It isn`t really something that is talked about openly - but it sort of falls into the same category as condoms and the like. Women don`t go and start up conversations about condoms with guys... But if they know another woman is having some condom issue they might chime in with their experience. Once I had to have this procedure mother-in-law told me she`d had to have one for a different reason after she had sister-in-law.
As for trauma... Japan is pretty harsh on having it done ASAP. Anything after 6 weeks is about 30% more in price, and after 8 weeks you usually have to stay overnight and pay twice as much. After 12~14 weeks they will keep you for 2 days and you pay another huge fee. Anything later and you really NEED a very good reason as there are very few clinics that will do it. Most of them are therefore done very early, long before there is a real sense of a baby being present. All are done sedated - there are none where you are awake through the procedure.
I would say it ranked fairly low on the trauma scale, but then again I knew from pretty much day one that there was no physical way to have the baby. Waiting until it naturally died was just prolonging the inevitable. I do imagine that feelings would likely be different if the circumstances were different, but at the same time there is little of the religious morality and pressure.