Japan gov't starts process to compensate forced sterilization victims

The eugenics law permitted sterilization or abortion surgery for people with intellectual disabilities, mental illnesses, or hereditary disorders without their consent, aiming to prevent "inferior" traits from entering the gene pool.
About 25,000 people were sterilized, 16,500 of them without consent, and there were around 59,000 cases of abortion surgery under the law, according to government data, with over 23,000 victims estimated to be alive.
The government will pay 15 million yen each to victims of forced sterilization surgery under the 1948-1996 eugenics law, 5 million yen to spouses of the victims and a lump sum of 2 million yen to those forced to undergo abortion surgery.

15M JPY is about 100k USD, and 4 years of median annual salary.

The eugenics law permitted sterilization or abortion surgery for people with intellectual disabilities, mental illnesses, or hereditary disorders without their consent, aiming to prevent "inferior" traits from entering the gene pool.

Reminds me of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy#Contraception_and_sterilization

Excerpt: (This is People's Republic of China btw)

In 1983 mandatory sterilization occurred after the birth of the second or third child.[95] As the restrictions tightened a few years later, if a woman gave birth to two children, legally she had to be sterilized. Alternatively, in some cases her husband could be sterilized in her place. In other cases, sterilization of surplus children occurred.

My mom told me that she was forcibly sterilized after she gave birth to me, the second child in the family. I probably wouldn't have been born if the CCP found out about me earlier (they would do mandatory abortions against the parent's will).

I constantly think about the other "timelines" where I was never born, kinda unsettling to think about.