Assisted Reproductive Technologies in Contemporary Japan: Experiences and Perceptions of Some Japanese Mothers

Abstract

Within a Japanese society grappling with low-birth rates, delayed marriages and late-in-life pregnancies, the use of natural and biomedical Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) has become an issue of critical public health concern. This article presents the opinions of and experiences with ARTs of 56 Japanese mothers, aged between 29 and 45. Hailing from Tokyo and Kanagawa, 45 of these women had accessed different forms of ARTs in order to become pregnant. All the respondents were interviewed twice for an hour each, and their responses were analyzed from a symbolic interactionist perspective. The analysis suggested the salience of gender, sexuality, and kinship as the three main axes along which it was possible to understand how ARTs impacted the daily social interactions and subjectivities of the group. Furthermore, sexlessness and biological essentialism were key to understanding the experiences and perceptions of these women, all of whom were married.