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SENDAI, JAPAN, May 18, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Twenty years ago, Japan seemed poised to displace the United States as the world’s economic superpower. Now, it is fast approaching a nation with no future – one that an economics professor estimates will have no children under the age of 15 in 1,000 years.

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“Japan’s fertility is lowest among developed countries,” Professor Hiroshi Yoshida told LifeSiteNews.com.

Professor Yoshida, who teaches the Economics of Aging at the Graduate School of Economics and Management in Tohoku University in Sendai, has developed an online clock that counts down the number of children under the age of 15 remaining in the island nation.

It shows there are 280,000 fewer children in Japan in this year than in 2011.

If these trends continue, that means in 364,875 days, there will be no children left.

(Click “like” if you want to end abortion! )

The Japanese birthrate now stands somewhere between 1.1 and 1.3 children per couple, about half the level required for replacement. As a result, each year its population contracts and ages. The United Nations estimates each day there are 30 fewer Japanese people than the day before.

The Japanese have coined a term to refer to themselves: “shoshika,” that is, “a society without children.” 

By 2050, Japan’s population will contract by 25 percent.

Professor Yoshida’s online counter is unique in that it focuses on the children rather than total population.

The famously insular nation’s fertility drop comes from an aging population that marries later and has progressively fewer children.

Japan also suffers an estimated 250,000 abortions a year but continues to approve new forms of birth control and abortion including NorLevo, an abortifacient that works up to 72 hours after intercourse.

Economist magazine has stated, if the nation’s demographic implosion continues, “the two ‘lost decades’ of economic stagnation in Japan since 1990 may turn out not to be an aberration.”

The clock can be seen here.

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