Regarding Haruaki Deguchi's opinion piece in the July 1 edition, "Blame gender gap for Japan's low fertility rate," a massive rigorous study of abortions worldwide by Thomas W. Jacobson and Wm. Robert Johnston, titled "Abortion Worldwide Report" says there were "only" 123,000 performed in Japan in 1948, the first year they reported for this nation. After this, the number rapidly reached a peak of 1,170,143 in 1955 and then gradually declined to "only" 176,388 abortions in 2015; the total number was 39,084,000.
My point: If Japan, with a population of about 127 million, still had most of those nearly 40 million people and there were no abortions continuing today, would that not have made a huge difference in the "fertility rate"?
And wouldn't there be many more "younger" people to now help support the "old" people (and do other good things for Japan's society). And it's not just the total number of abortions, but surely a much bigger number if you factor in the number of births that the females who were aborted might have had over that period.
I believe this is the "elephant in the room" that no one ever talks about (due to "political correctness"?) when trying to explain Japan's low birthrate and the problems it's causing.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.