Brain Death

Traditionally in Japan, it is common practice to be weary of the doctor who tries to extract organs from the brain dead, but for abortion of an unborn fetus to be common practice. These attitudes towards the fetus and brain death are contradictory stances when it comes to the sanctity of life, however, through ritual practices, these contradictions begin to illustrate how the Japanese view life, death, and family. Brain death in Japan is seen as a too individualized definition of death. Brain death requires only the individual, which goes against the foundation of Japanese society, the group. The Japanese are a society that is built on the Confucian principle of the Five Relationships, which in turn means, that the relationships and rituals that one has with another is more important than the individual. In this instance, death is not …show more content…
The Japanese view spirits in all living or inanimate things with all things having the buddha nature, and therefore, a fetus, though not having had any breath of life, still contains a spirit and the potential for Buddhahood. From this understand, the woman who had the abortion could feel guilt over her abortion, however, through the ritual of mizuko kuyo, a woman is able to comfort the soul of the fetus, and in turn, relieve some of the guilt that she feels. Abortions are not overly seen as the ending of life, but the postponement of the earthly life for the child that was aborted for the reason that the spirit of the child does not die when the body of the child dies. It could therefore be understood that though the child is not earthly present, the child is still apart of the family in which it was to be born, but is not apart of the family in a physical sense