GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: Japan apologises for the sterilization of 25,000 citizens

domingo, 28 de abril de 2019

Japan apologises for the sterilization of 25,000 citizens

Japan apologises for the sterilization of 25,000 citizens

Bioedge

Japan apologises for the sterilization of 25,000 citizens

by Xavier Symons | 27 Apr 2019 |

The Japanese government has apologised and offered compensation to persons sterilised under the country’s Eugenic Protection Law, in place between 1948 and 1996.

An estimated 25,000 Japanese were sterilised under the law, 16,500 without consent. Many of the victims were disabled or suffering from mental illness. Most of the sterilisations occurred between the 1950s to the 1970s.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has issued an apology for the "great suffering" experienced by persons who were rendered infertile. "During the period the law was in effect, many people were subjected to operations that made them unable to have children based on their having a disability or another chronic illness, causing them great suffering," Mr Abe said in a statement. “As the government that carried out this law, after deep reflection, I would like to apologise from the bottom of my heart”.

Under a new law that was passed on Wednesday, surviving victims will each be eligible for 3.2 million yen (US$28,600) in compensation. Yet some victims are unhappy with the apology, and see the offer of compensation as insult.

The apology and the redress law follow a series of lawsuits by victims who came forward recently after breaking decades of silence, prompting politicians from both ruling and opposition parties to draft the package.

Xavier Symons is deputy editor of BioEdge.

The latest figures for euthanasia deaths in Canada have just been published. Allowing for some deficiencies in the data, an astonishing 1.12% of deaths are attributable to what the Canadians call "Medical Aid in Dying" (MAiD). I say "astonishing" because, like many others, I thought that euthanasia would be "safe, legal and rare". Instead, between one in a hundred and one in fifty people die at the hands of a doctor.

The Ministry of Health explains that "The percentage of deaths ... continues to remain within the percentage of medically assisted deaths provided in other countries where 0.4% (Oregon, USA, 2017) to 4% (Netherlands, 2017) of total deaths has been attributed to a medically assisted death". Somehow this is meant to be reassuring, but comparing two figures which differ by a factor of ten and relate to two different practices (assisted suicide and euthanasia) is meaningless.

What should alarm all Canadians is that in a mere two years since legalisation, euthanasia has become so widespread. Is it going to stop at 4%? There's no reason to say that it will.