The English translation of the Japanese title is "Celebrating Life" but I prefer the Mandarin one, which is something like "Consent to being born". Sounds clumsy as hell in English but trust me it works in Chinese and sounds appropriately legislative and sinister.
In a world where fetuses must consent to being born, this novella is an exploration of body autonomy at its most inclusive and radical. The MC, Cai Hua, joyfully expects the arrival of her first baby with her wife, whilst also managing a complicated relationship with her estranged sister. Predictable shit goes wrong when it's Cai Hua's baby's turn for the birth consent test. While it's an excellent concept, the execution is lukewarm.
In this world, every fetus is provided with a quality of life index number on a scale between 0-10, and based on this number, the fetus either consents or does not consent to being born. How this procedure works is never explained in the slightest, and other fascinating and rich ideas are left completely unexplored. Key among which is: Does a nine month old actually have the cognitive or developmental capacity to consent to their own life, or to euthanasia??!?! How would you ensure the thereoretical medical validity of the consent test, and what are the implications if this test is unsound? How does "society" or the state measure and boil down the messiness and plurality of life, into a single quantitative number on a mathematical scale? How would a system where different fetuses are provided with different "odds of happiness" exacerbate eugenics in a world racked with climate disaster, racism, and a widening gulf between rich and poor?
The novella is exposition heavy to the point of being didactic, most notably in the set up of how the Consensual Birth System and legislation operates. This is dry as hell, feels like a Wiki entry, and would have worked better in a short story or speculative manifesto. Once we finally get to the characters it's also all telling, little showing. For example, Cai Hua interrupts a scene with her wife to deliver another Wiki summary to the reader on how Japan has equal marriage -- yes bestie, that was very much clear when you introduced a woman *as your wife*.
There's an incredible meaty kernel here to be explored in the overlapping complementary yet competing spheres of bodily autonomy for the fetus/child, and the birthing parent. But the actual ethical debates between Cai Hua, her wife and sister about the nature of self determination, bodily autonomy and social progress are superficial and repetitive.
"No other animals have birth consent, so isn’t the birth consent law going against nature?"
"Ah yes, but humans are different from other animals because we live in a society."
"But isn't society going too far?"
"Ah yes, but if there was no social progress, women wouldn't have the vote and black people would still be slaves."
"Ah yes I see wow thank you for changing my mind."
"Yes yes I am very clever."
I'm barely even paraphrasing. These dialogues read a lot more like my terrible RS GSCE essay on abortion rights than complex characters having real, emotion led conversations.
There is a plot twist that Cai Hua's sister is part of a women led terrorist group that attacks Tokyo hospitals performing birth consent tests (read: "pro-lifers"/forced birthers who bomb abortion clinics) but the the reader can see that coming a mile off. The terrorism stuff all happens off page, and doesn't lead to exploration of the growth of reactionary social movements and extremist ideologies (women and the alt-right would have been SUCH a fascinating road to go down!!), which feels like a big wasted opportunity.
The most important and interesting development in this book is how Cai Hua's digust at the bigoted anti-Birth Consent movement is turned upside down when her own cherished fetus unexpectedly refuses consent to being born. She goes from an adamant supporter of this obvious legal right, to a grief stricken, heavily pregnant parent grappling with the betrayal of her thwarted dreams of motherhood. Philosophical debates are always so black and white when you're not personally impacted by them! Cai Hua flips on a dime, and becomes deeply tempted by the idea that it would just be *so easy* to just give birth to her baby the natural way. This causes a rift with her wife, and her due date is drawing horribly near. Then just when the narrative is getting thorny and interesting, another lil pocket sized philosophy debate with a random woman she meets in a bar teaches Cai Hua the error of her ways. Her opinions flip back, she reconciles with her wife and consents to an abortion, and the book ends. Ta da!
All this leaves one feeling quite unsatisfied. I'm not actually sure "only people who knowingly opted in to life have the tools overcome the shittiness of this world and experience real meaning and happiness" and "some people are just born with incurable depression, and therefore depressed children should be able to sue their parents for euthanasia" are woke takes. To me, they reflect a nihilistic, millenial doomcore view of reality more than they reflect a progressive, ethically and scientifically robust framework of bodily autonomy.
Something else I found underdeveloped was the gender-essentialist and cisnormative attitudes towards men and women's experiences of labour, birth and parenthood held by all the characters in this book. Men, it is repeatedly stated, DO NOT understand the emotional connection between a mother and baby and NEVER will, because women have WOMBS and men do NOT and that makes women EMPATHETIC and men UNCARING and this CANNOT BE CHANGED!! Alright girl, speak for yourself, but its giving Terfy lesbian separatism. Feminism and women's experiences are wildly different between Japan, Taiwan and the Anglosphere - that I know. I mean I don't particularly know *how* they differ, but I know they do. Nonetheless, I was surprised that the impact of patriarchy was not unpacked from a well rounded queer lens, particularly given the author is gay and trans (which, hell yeah).
Overall, I think someone should translate this novella into English. These ideas are so interesting and they deserve further development. Also, a book on a topic this controversial would create reams of online discourse and multiple twitter pile ons, and that would provide my nihilistic, millenial doomcore life with much needed entertainment.