Photo/Illutration Naoki Hyakuta, leader of the Conservative Party of Japan, speaks in Nagoya on Nov. 10 alongside Kaori Arimoto, the party’s secretary-general. (Tadashi Mizowaki)

NAGOYA—After a deluge of criticism, the leader of the Conservative Party of Japan retracted his suggestion that subjecting women over 30 to having their uteruses removed would prod them to have children and reverse the declining birthrate.

“I meant to say that we cannot transform the social structure unless we do something that goes that far,” Naoki Hyakuta said here on Nov. 10, also referring to other comments of a similar ilk. “I want to retract my remarks and apologize.”

Hyakuta made those remarks in a video uploaded to YouTube on Nov. 8 where he discussed measures to increase the nation’s birthrate.

Kaori Arimoto, the party’s secretary-general, said society’s values are rapidly changing and that people do not anticipate gaining happiness if they have a child.

Hyakuta said the social structure should be changed to overturn that belief.

He suggested women should not be allowed to go to a university once they turn 18 and that single women over 25 be banned by law from getting married for the remainder of their lives.

Those statements came after Hyakuta, who is also an author, repeatedly emphasized that he was not actively promoting them and asked viewers to interpret them as “science fiction by a novelist.”

Arimoto also said people should be taught from childhood that there is a “time restriction” involved in having a biological child.

It was then that Hyakuta responded by suggesting that women over 30 have hysterectomies.

Hyakuta apologized for his remarks in Nagoya on Nov. 10 after campaigning for a party candidate running in the mayoral election.

“The expressions were coarse and shocking, and some people might take them as even ghoulish,” he told reporters.

The party’s co-leader, Takashi Kawamura, also apologized for the comments. Kawamura, a former Nagoya mayor, and two other party members won seats in the Lower House election in October.

Hyakuta’s remarks sparked an uproar over social media and elsewhere.

At the venue where Hyakuta spoke for the party candidate, some in the audience demanded clarifications from him.

Aichi Governor Hideaki Omura, who was campaigning for a different mayoral election candidate, criticized Hyakuta’s comments as “unspeakably hideous” on Nov. 10.

Hyakuta earlier apologized to those who “felt uncomfortable” in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on the night of Nov. 9.

He said his comments were intended as “dystopian analogies,” but acknowledged that the expressions were somewhat shocking.

He also emphasized he had prefaced his comments a number of times by saying those proposals were “what not to do” and that they are nothing more than science fiction. 

Hyakuta is one of the founders of the Conservative Party of Japan, which was established last autumn.

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