The woman did go to get her pregnancy terminated, but she'd crossed the 21-week mark mandate set by her country.
Trigger Warning: This story contains details of murder and abortion that may be disturbing to readers.
Koyuri Kitai, 23, was visiting Tokyo from Kobe, a city near Osaka, to attend job interviews. As soon as she landed at the Haneda Airport, she felt a sharp pain in her stomach, which prompted her to head over to the lavatory in the airport. She was in labor, and soon, she ended up giving birth to a baby girl in the toilet.
The baby was one that she didn't want in the first place, and since she felt like she had no other choice, she stuffed toilet paper down the newborn's throat, killing her, reports VICE. She then buried the infant's body in a Tokyo park. The incident took place in 2019, and Kitai was arrested in November the same year after the baby's body was discovered from the park.
According to NHK, Kitai said the baby’s father was a customer from her part-time job. She kept her pregnancy a secret from her family, even refusing to go to a gynecologist for regular check-ups. By the time she sought medical assistance, it was too late to terminate her pregnancy. Abortions are offered to women only up to 21 weeks and six days of pregnancy in Japan.
‘Panicked’ Woman Gives Birth in a Bathroom and Suffocates ithttps://t.co/O43K8eHGrR
— Andrew Geczy (@AndrewGeczy) September 14, 2021
"Throws abortion laws in question"
"Abortions allowed up to 21 weeks..."
I dunno, sounds like she just went fucking cuckoo and thought she could ignore the pregnancy and it would go away.
“My doctor told me I couldn’t abort the baby, and I had no knowledge of what to do. I thought if I told my parents I’d shock them. I didn’t have the courage to consult them about the baby’s birth,” Kitai told the Tokyo District Court during her trial.
Kitai said she didn’t know she was going to give birth on that specific day, but when she did, she “panicked.”
“I thought about calling an ambulance, but then I suddenly realized I was stuffing toilet paper in the baby’s mouth. I was worried and scared, I didn’t know what to do,” she was reported as saying.
Yumiko Nakajima, the head doctor of Shimodaira Ladies Clinic in Tokyo, said Kitai’s case is “saddening”, adding that this case sheds light on the fact that pregnant women need more support.
“It’s an example of a young woman who didn’t know what resources were available to her for this unwanted pregnancy,” she said. “Even if we have funding and organizations that support women, if the information doesn’t get to them, there’s no point.”
Nakajima has spent about 16 years at Shimodaira clinic, during which she's had to turn away several women who crossed the mark to legally abort their child. “It’s very difficult to be a single mother in Japan. That’s why I think if the law prevents these women from aborting their infants after a certain time, there should be adequate social systems that support them. They shouldn’t be alone,” she said.
A person from Japan who has been convicted of homicide can be punished by a minimum sentence of five years and up to life imprisonment or death. Information on the woman's sentence is yet to be released.
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Cover Image Source (Representative): Getty Images | jax10289
