Originally brought to Japan through the United States (like Charles Davenport and John Coulter), through Mendelian inheritance by way of German influences, and French Lamarckian eugenic written studies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
[2] Popularity of the pure-blood eugenics theory came from a homegrown racial purity or monoculture national belief that has been part of Japanese society since ancient times[citation needed].
[5] Yoshiichi Sōwa (曽和義弌), author of "Japan's Shinto Revolution",[6] wrote in 1940, "When we look up into the past, the people of our country are descended from the kami.
"[7] Yamanouchi Shige (1876–1973), a plant cytologist, was one of the early and important members of the Japanese eugenics movement, who was trained under John Merle Coulter (1851–1928) an American eugenicist and botanist.
[8] According to Jennifer Robertson of the University of Michigan, eugenism, as part of the new scientific order, was introduced in Japan "under the aegis of nationalism and empire building.
[12] Nagai, the "Doctor of Eugenics", assumed the position of chief director of The Japanese Society of Health and Human Ecology (JSHHE), which was established in 1930.
[12] An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus, a secret document for the use of policy-makers, cited eugenics approvingly, calling for the medical profession not to concentrate on the sick and weak, and for mental and physical training and selective marriages to improve the population.
[16] This law limited compulsory sterilization to "inherited mental disease", promoted genetic screening and restricted birth control access.
Family center staff also attempted to discourage marriage between Japanese women and Korean men who had been recruited from the peninsula as laborers following its annexation by Japan in 1910.
According to Nakano, the divine mission of the Japanese Empire was not to oppress and subjugate other peoples but to liberate them from colonialism and unite them as part of a common Asian civilization.
On 19 August 1945, the Home Ministry ordered local government offices to establish a prostitution service for Allied occupation soldiers to preserve the "purity" of the "Japanese race".
The official declaration stated that: Through the sacrifice of thousands of "Okichis" of the Shōwa era, we shall construct a dike to hold back the mad frenzy of the occupation troops and cultivate and preserve the purity of our race long into the future...[22] Such clubs were soon established by cabinet councillor Yoshio Kodama and Ryoichi Sasakawa.
[26] The law also allowed for abortion for pregnancies in the cases of rape, leprosy, hereditarily-transmitted disease, or if the physician determined that the fetus would not be viable outside of the womb.