Eugenics in Imperial Japan

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During the 1930s to the 1940s, measures were taken in the Japanese Empire, similar to German eugenics methods, in order to reduce birth defects and to maintain the "superiority" of the Japanese race.

[edit] Eugenics measures in the Japanese Empire

Japanese eugenicists were preoccupied with demographics (see Japanese demography before WWII), particularly in reducing the rate of birth defects, as well as the protection of the 'racial purity' of the Japanese in East Asia. There was also focus on removing "inferior" traits from the Japanese gene pool. Some thinkers, including Sadao Araki, took interest in and promoted various eugenic measures to preserve the "superior qualities" of the Japanese race.

[edit] Eugenics studies and measures

Eugenic ideologues, particularly ones within the Japanese military, created laws ordering the sterilization of "inferior" or "inadequate" citizens as well as the abortion of fetuses with such parents in order to maintain the "superiority" of the Japanese race.

There were also campaigns to increase the 'production' of physically "perfect" future Samurai warriors. These programs were guided by Katsuko Tojo, the wife of General Tojo. The Japanese government gave economic support to all mothers with large families. Eugenicists planned a ten-year program to augment the number of future soldiers to 100,000,000.

Eugenic thinking probably had wider effects. Japanese soldiers received instruction on how 'inferior' Asian and European races were to be treated. Military personnel who violated these instructions were severely punished.

In 1926 the birth rate of abnormal persons was estimated at 60,000, but had increased by 1938 to 90,000 births.^{[citation needed]} In the latter year the Diet approved the "National Eugenic Law" which required the sterilization of mentally incompetent persons, and banned birth control and so-called "sexual delincuency".