women. She believed that giving women control of their own reproduction would allow women to achieve greater independence, as well as allow there to be a public issue in which women took a leadership role. Another part of her argument was that birth control would help the people of Japan to raise better children. She thought that by having fewer children, women could create better educational and economic opportunities for the children that they did have. It is around this time that Katō met Kanjū Katō, who would later become her second husband. They met in 1923, when Kanjū Katō, a labor organizer, arranged for her to speak to miners at Ashio copper mine. She was later granted a divorce from her first husband, Baron Ishimoto, and married Katō in 1944. In keeping with the "influence and respectability of eugenics" in the first part of the twentieth century, Katō Shidzue too supported eugenics, believing that children born to two healthy parents would be better off than children born to sick or weak parents. The right-wing pro-natalist Japanese government arrested Katō in 1937 for her promotion of "dangerous thoughts," specifically her advocacy of birth control and abortion rights, and she spent two weeks in prison. This temporarily ended the birth control movement in Japan until after World War II. Diet of Japan (1946–1974) Katō was the first woman to campaign for office in Japan, campaigning under a Socialist platform with and emphasis on American-style democracy. In 1946, Shidzue Katō was elected to the Japanese Diet. Her campaign platform was based on family planning and improving the economic prospects of women. In 1946 she wrote concerning the link between the birth control movement and Japanese democracy:Giving birth to many, and letting many die—repeating such an unwise way of life for Japanese women will result in exhaustion of the maternal body, as well as mental damage and material loss for the family.… Without the liberation and improvement of women, it is impossible to build democracy in Japan.Although Katō was initially hopeful of women's growing political role, she was soon marginalized in the mostly male Diet. Despite this, she looked for other ways to achieve her political reforms. In 1946 she was instrumental in organizing the first "women only" rally in Tokyo. This rally protested for greater economic resources for women. Katō was later elected to four six-year terms in the Upper House. She