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Bridget Sielicki
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From a career in finance to the pro-life front lines in Japan
As a French Catholic father of eight with degrees in mathematics and finance who worked in banking before become CFO and legal director of a fine-grocery import firm, Paul de Lacvivier never planned to become a pro-life advocate in Tokyo, Japan.
Yet, today, de Lacvivier finds himself at the heart of Japan’s nascent March for Life, navigating a culture largely indifferent to the pro-life cause and a demographic emergency that looms over the country’s future.
In a wide-ranging interview with Live Action News, de Lacvivier opened up about his journey, the distinctive difficulties of promoting a pro-life message in a country where Christianity is a minority religion, and why, in his view, the struggle to protect unborn life cannot be separated from upholding the family as God designed it.
For de Lacvivier, the call to defend unborn life came from lived experience. “
As a Catholic father of eight, safeguarding children before birth felt like an obvious and essential duty to protect the family, which is the bedrock of society, he told Live Action News.
His resolve to defend life hardened when he faced a startling truth about his own origins: “I came to realize that I myself might have been aborted—or at the very least, left frozen in a lab, since I was conceived via IVF.”
His relocation to Japan was the result of Divine Providence. “I live here and I love this country, so I owe it a contribution to the common good. This is my modest way of repaying what Japan has given me: the chance to raise my family in tranquility,” he stated.
Living between French and Japanese cultures has altered de Lacvivier’s method of pro-life advocacy.
At first, he was convinced that mere appeals to natural law would be enough to convince the Japanese public about the need to protect all human lives.
“Defending innocent life is, in the end, primarily a question of natural right,” he pointed out to Live Action News.
However, as the years passed, he realized the downsides of that approach in Japanese society, where the prevailing attitude toward pro-life advocates is a quiet, pagan apathy. He said:
“The pagan public opinion here is indifferent. It won’t say abortion isn’t murder—but it quietly kills its children for convenience, for comfort, without it bothering anyone, all while making a lot of money for doctors.
After all, in the pagan mindset, abortion is nothing new; it allows the elimination of children from questionable or forbidden relationships.”
Having said that, Japan’s demographic catastrophe — with a dismal fertility rate of below 1.0 in Tokyo and the median age of the population currently over 50 — has forced politicians to pay attention.
De Lacvivier’s career path reads like a providential detour. “To be frank, God chose the professions I practice, which I would never have chosen myself,” he admitted.
He explained that he also saw it as part of his responsibility to help organize the Tokyo March for Life, an initiative that has endured a series of difficult seasons. Although the 2024 march attracted roughly 80 participants, internal conflicts have exacted a heavy price on the group.
“2025 and 2026 have been terrible,” de Lacvivier admitted. “The march is going through an internal crisis. The historical organizer effectively stepped down, and I had to take over as best I could to manage a transition.”
Japan, as de Lacvivier highlighted, “doesn’t have a culture of demonstration.” Such circumstances prevent unique challenges.
“It’s unusual here, but there is something to fight for. We must position ourselves firmly in the political sphere, avoid being seen as a cult, and go directly to the highest levels of power. It’s doable, but it requires strategy and people,” he said, adding that building a diverse coalition in a country where public religious expression is rare has proven difficult.
“Pray for the march in Japan, because it is on the verge of disappearing. Yet the potential is enormous.”
For de Lacvivier, the March for Life is both a political protest and an act of “public reparation” for the sin of abortion.
“If a society commits a public sin, as members of that society we are also responsible, even against our will. So we must repair and fight.”
Nonetheless, de Lacvivier maintained that the March for Life must remain primarily political. “The March for Life has above all a political goal: to correct the disorder committed against natural law and the family.”
This political goal, he continued, “must include religious reparation, praying that ultimately the State itself will do justice to God and the family institution by restoring and repairing.”
The abortion rate in Japan is staggering: 130,000 to 160,000 abortions per year in Japan, with over 100 million since 1946, de Lacvivier said, adding:
“This is key and central: Japan loses 600,000 souls every year. The median age is over 50. We are in a country of old people, and this is not an image: in my neighborhood, we will certainly be the only survivors in 20 years."
Beneath the surface of economic success, de Lacvivier observed that Japan was a country gripped by moral decay, veering toward nationalism and racial prejudice as it sought to blame immigrant communities for problems it faced.
“The pro-life fight is also an opportunity to make people aware of this profound modern Japanese malaise and offer solutions to overcome it,” he told Live Action News.
Under Japan’s Maternal Protection Act, abortion for economic reasons is allowed. In view of this, de Lacvivier’s demands are clear:
“First, abortion must no longer allow doctors to make money. In practice, even if it’s illegal, infanticide can be committed here for money. The State does not seek to punish or enforce the law. Obviously, this law must be abolished, and a strict application of the law that still prohibits abortion must be restored.”
Yet de Lacvivier contended that the deeper issue Japan has been facing for years is a cultural one:
“It’s a question of education and formation about what the family is and the distinct roles of father and mother. LGBT and feminist attacks are deep here too, and women are the great victims of an education that makes them anything but mothers or women."
When asked what concrete pro-life policies he would advocate, de Lacvivier is uncompromising:
“Severely prosecute killer doctors and abortion clinics. Eliminate any possibility of selling this ‘service.’ And for large families, why not give a ‘salary’ to a stay-at-home mother who has more than a certain number of children? Japan already gives a lot of money to families, but it does not reward stay-at-home mothers at all. On the contrary, the state wants to make them work. There is a contradiction there that truly prevents solving the problem."
De Lacvivier offered a sobering assessment of how the Catholic Church in Japan engaged with the pro-life movement.
“The clergy here is very liberal; that complicates things. Our internal divisions don’t help. We simply need to make the organization of the march independent, led by laypeople, and laypeople from all backgrounds.”
Notably, the Tokyo March for Life receives support from La Marche pour la Vie in France, and de Lacvivier is looking even more westward too:
“I would also like to have the support of the March For Life in the United States. It’s a strong argument in Japan to be supported by the United States or Western Europe: it gives the movement more voice, more legitimacy, and shows that this is not a strange thing.”
Outreach to non-Catholics remains a central focus for de Lacvivier in his pro-life advocacy in Japan.
“Once the March For Life is strong enough, it can do apostolate through witness, as in 2018. Today, unfortunately, that’s not possible.” To reach people outside Christian circles, he presents the message through the lens of natural law and the protection of the Japanese nation, that is seeing dwindling numbers.
“Objectively, the homeland is dying from lack of children.”
While practical assistance is available for women dealing with unplanned pregnancies in Japan, it remains limited in scope, according to de Lacvivier.
There is an old initiative called Akachan Post, which allows abandoned children to be taken in (rather than aborted). There are also representatives of the Lejeune Foundation for those with Down syndrome.
But the gaps are immense, he said. The State is not involved, and resources are scarce. Ideologically, "everything is given over to liberal and LGBT propaganda, but no Catholic magnate funds the pro-life fight, as in the United States or elsewhere,” de Lacvivier admitted.
Yet he remains positive and upbeat about the pro-life cause, saying, “We are dwarfs, but we fight valiantly.”
Engaging Japan’s medical professionals is another challenge that de Lacvivier singled out:
“We need to reactivate old medical networks, especially midwives. Hostility from the medical community is to be expected, but we need to raise awareness further and demonstrate outside abortion clinics, with the idea of perhaps saving a life through witness and showing a mother that there are other solutions than killing her child.”
Looking ahead to the future of the pro-life movement in Japan for the next 5-10 years, de Lacvivier’s vision is both ambitious and humble.
“Both legal change and cultural shift are needed. We must entrust everything to God, and from a human perspective, do three things: consolidate the movement, make it independent, and lay-oriented with a Japanese and female leadership, and then aim our efforts directly at the highest level of the Japanese state.”
For pro-life advocates worldwide, de Lacvivier’s account underscores that the struggle to defend life is global, even where the front lines appear strikingly different. In Japan, as in other countries, what hangs in the balance the need could hardly be greater: the very future of a nation, the wholeness of the family, and the inherent dignity of every human being from conception until natural death.
De Lacvivier's prayer for Japan is simply, "Que Dieu nous aide — May God help us.”
Live Action News is pro-life news and commentary from a pro-life perspective.
Our work is possible because of our donors. Please consider giving to further our work of changing hearts and minds on issues of life and human dignity.
Contact editor@liveaction.org for questions, corrections, or if you are seeking permission to reprint any Live Action News content.
Guest Articles: To submit a guest article to Live Action News, email editor@liveaction.org with an attached Word document of 800-1000 words. Please also attach any photos relevant to your submission if applicable. If your submission is accepted for publication, you will be notified within three weeks. Guest articles are not compensated (see our Open License Agreement). Thank you for your interest in Live Action News!
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·From a career in finance to the pro-life front lines in Japan
As a French Catholic father of eight with degrees in mathematics and finance who worked in banking before become CFO and legal director of a fine-grocery import firm, Paul de Lacvivier never planned to become a pro-life advocate in Tokyo, Japan.
Yet, today, de Lacvivier finds himself at the heart of Japan’s nascent March for Life, navigating a culture largely indifferent to the pro-life cause and a demographic emergency that looms over the country’s future.
In a wide-ranging interview with Live Action News, de Lacvivier opened up about his journey, the distinctive difficulties of promoting a pro-life message in a country where Christianity is a minority religion, and why, in his view, the struggle to protect unborn life cannot be separated from upholding the family as God designed it.
For de Lacvivier, the call to defend unborn life came from lived experience. “
As a Catholic father of eight, safeguarding children before birth felt like an obvious and essential duty to protect the family, which is the bedrock of society, he told Live Action News.
His resolve to defend life hardened when he faced a startling truth about his own origins: “I came to realize that I myself might have been aborted—or at the very least, left frozen in a lab, since I was conceived via IVF.”
His relocation to Japan was the result of Divine Providence. “I live here and I love this country, so I owe it a contribution to the common good. This is my modest way of repaying what Japan has given me: the chance to raise my family in tranquility,” he stated.
Living between French and Japanese cultures has altered de Lacvivier’s method of pro-life advocacy.
At first, he was convinced that mere appeals to natural law would be enough to convince the Japanese public about the need to protect all human lives.
“Defending innocent life is, in the end, primarily a question of natural right,” he pointed out to Live Action News.
However, as the years passed, he realized the downsides of that approach in Japanese society, where the prevailing attitude toward pro-life advocates is a quiet, pagan apathy. He said:
“The pagan public opinion here is indifferent. It won’t say abortion isn’t murder—but it quietly kills its children for convenience, for comfort, without it bothering anyone, all while making a lot of money for doctors.
After all, in the pagan mindset, abortion is nothing new; it allows the elimination of children from questionable or forbidden relationships.”
Having said that, Japan’s demographic catastrophe — with a dismal fertility rate of below 1.0 in Tokyo and the median age of the population currently over 50 — has forced politicians to pay attention.
De Lacvivier’s career path reads like a providential detour. “To be frank, God chose the professions I practice, which I would never have chosen myself,” he admitted.
He explained that he also saw it as part of his responsibility to help organize the Tokyo March for Life, an initiative that has endured a series of difficult seasons. Although the 2024 march attracted roughly 80 participants, internal conflicts have exacted a heavy price on the group.
“2025 and 2026 have been terrible,” de Lacvivier admitted. “The march is going through an internal crisis. The historical organizer effectively stepped down, and I had to take over as best I could to manage a transition.”
Japan, as de Lacvivier highlighted, “doesn’t have a culture of demonstration.” Such circumstances prevent unique challenges.
“It’s unusual here, but there is something to fight for. We must position ourselves firmly in the political sphere, avoid being seen as a cult, and go directly to the highest levels of power. It’s doable, but it requires strategy and people,” he said, adding that building a diverse coalition in a country where public religious expression is rare has proven difficult.
“Pray for the march in Japan, because it is on the verge of disappearing. Yet the potential is enormous.”
For de Lacvivier, the March for Life is both a political protest and an act of “public reparation” for the sin of abortion.
“If a society commits a public sin, as members of that society we are also responsible, even against our will. So we must repair and fight.”
Nonetheless, de Lacvivier maintained that the March for Life must remain primarily political. “The March for Life has above all a political goal: to correct the disorder committed against natural law and the family.”
This political goal, he continued, “must include religious reparation, praying that ultimately the State itself will do justice to God and the family institution by restoring and repairing.”
The abortion rate in Japan is staggering: 130,000 to 160,000 abortions per year in Japan, with over 100 million since 1946, de Lacvivier said, adding:
“This is key and central: Japan loses 600,000 souls every year. The median age is over 50. We are in a country of old people, and this is not an image: in my neighborhood, we will certainly be the only survivors in 20 years."
Beneath the surface of economic success, de Lacvivier observed that Japan was a country gripped by moral decay, veering toward nationalism and racial prejudice as it sought to blame immigrant communities for problems it faced.
“The pro-life fight is also an opportunity to make people aware of this profound modern Japanese malaise and offer solutions to overcome it,” he told Live Action News.
Under Japan’s Maternal Protection Act, abortion for economic reasons is allowed. In view of this, de Lacvivier’s demands are clear:
“First, abortion must no longer allow doctors to make money. In practice, even if it’s illegal, infanticide can be committed here for money. The State does not seek to punish or enforce the law. Obviously, this law must be abolished, and a strict application of the law that still prohibits abortion must be restored.”
Yet de Lacvivier contended that the deeper issue Japan has been facing for years is a cultural one:
“It’s a question of education and formation about what the family is and the distinct roles of father and mother. LGBT and feminist attacks are deep here too, and women are the great victims of an education that makes them anything but mothers or women."
When asked what concrete pro-life policies he would advocate, de Lacvivier is uncompromising:
“Severely prosecute killer doctors and abortion clinics. Eliminate any possibility of selling this ‘service.’ And for large families, why not give a ‘salary’ to a stay-at-home mother who has more than a certain number of children? Japan already gives a lot of money to families, but it does not reward stay-at-home mothers at all. On the contrary, the state wants to make them work. There is a contradiction there that truly prevents solving the problem."
De Lacvivier offered a sobering assessment of how the Catholic Church in Japan engaged with the pro-life movement.
“The clergy here is very liberal; that complicates things. Our internal divisions don’t help. We simply need to make the organization of the march independent, led by laypeople, and laypeople from all backgrounds.”
Notably, the Tokyo March for Life receives support from La Marche pour la Vie in France, and de Lacvivier is looking even more westward too:
“I would also like to have the support of the March For Life in the United States. It’s a strong argument in Japan to be supported by the United States or Western Europe: it gives the movement more voice, more legitimacy, and shows that this is not a strange thing.”
Outreach to non-Catholics remains a central focus for de Lacvivier in his pro-life advocacy in Japan.
“Once the March For Life is strong enough, it can do apostolate through witness, as in 2018. Today, unfortunately, that’s not possible.” To reach people outside Christian circles, he presents the message through the lens of natural law and the protection of the Japanese nation, that is seeing dwindling numbers.
“Objectively, the homeland is dying from lack of children.”
While practical assistance is available for women dealing with unplanned pregnancies in Japan, it remains limited in scope, according to de Lacvivier.
There is an old initiative called Akachan Post, which allows abandoned children to be taken in (rather than aborted). There are also representatives of the Lejeune Foundation for those with Down syndrome.
But the gaps are immense, he said. The State is not involved, and resources are scarce. Ideologically, "everything is given over to liberal and LGBT propaganda, but no Catholic magnate funds the pro-life fight, as in the United States or elsewhere,” de Lacvivier admitted.
Yet he remains positive and upbeat about the pro-life cause, saying, “We are dwarfs, but we fight valiantly.”
Engaging Japan’s medical professionals is another challenge that de Lacvivier singled out:
“We need to reactivate old medical networks, especially midwives. Hostility from the medical community is to be expected, but we need to raise awareness further and demonstrate outside abortion clinics, with the idea of perhaps saving a life through witness and showing a mother that there are other solutions than killing her child.”
Looking ahead to the future of the pro-life movement in Japan for the next 5-10 years, de Lacvivier’s vision is both ambitious and humble.
“Both legal change and cultural shift are needed. We must entrust everything to God, and from a human perspective, do three things: consolidate the movement, make it independent, and lay-oriented with a Japanese and female leadership, and then aim our efforts directly at the highest level of the Japanese state.”
For pro-life advocates worldwide, de Lacvivier’s account underscores that the struggle to defend life is global, even where the front lines appear strikingly different. In Japan, as in other countries, what hangs in the balance the need could hardly be greater: the very future of a nation, the wholeness of the family, and the inherent dignity of every human being from conception until natural death.
De Lacvivier's prayer for Japan is simply, "Que Dieu nous aide — May God help us.”
Live Action News is pro-life news and commentary from a pro-life perspective.
Our work is possible because of our donors. Please consider giving to further our work of changing hearts and minds on issues of life and human dignity.
Contact editor@liveaction.org for questions, corrections, or if you are seeking permission to reprint any Live Action News content.
Guest Articles: To submit a guest article to Live Action News, email editor@liveaction.org with an attached Word document of 800-1000 words. Please also attach any photos relevant to your submission if applicable. If your submission is accepted for publication, you will be notified within three weeks. Guest articles are not compensated (see our Open License Agreement). Thank you for your interest in Live Action News!
Bridget Sielicki
·Guest Column
Right to Life UK
·International
Cassy Cooke
·International
Nancy Flanders
·International
Cassy Cooke
·Issues
Bridget Sielicki
·Human Interest
Angeline Tan
·Human Interest
Angeline Tan
·Activism
Angeline Tan
·Activism
Angeline Tan
·Human Interest
Angeline Tan
·