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Women's clinic in Chiba Prefecture[/caption]
Contrary to what most people believe, abortion in Japan is not legal. The reason abortions are performed freely in Japan — 210,000 were reported in 2010, but the number is probably higher — is that shortly after the war the dataizai (illegal abortion) law was exchanged for the Eugenics Law to address the population boom. This law allowed for a pregnant woman to abort her child only if the pregnancy threatens her life or health, or if the woman is financially unable to raise the child. It did not make abortion a right available to any woman who wanted one.
It is thus assumed, for legal purposes, that the vast majority of women who undergo abortions do so for economic reasons. However, since there is no real provision for having women state their reasons when seeking abortions, and no woman in Japan has been prosecuted for aborting a fetus since World War II, abortion is considered effectively legal. It is also quite expensive. Unless the procedure is being carried out specifically for health reasons, national insurance will not cover it. This situation has lead to a paradox: Most women in Japan who seek abortions ostensibly do so because of financial hardship, but are nevertheless forced to pay a great deal of money to have those abortions performed.