In the 1980s, forced sterilizations and abortions were common in China as the one-child policy was strictly enforced but since then, fines have more typically been imposed. Now, the New York Times is reporting that in the southwestern Guangxi Autonomous Region, officials are forcing pregnant women without permission to give birth to have abortions and levying steep fines on families violating the law. As a result, riots have broken out and some may have been killed, including population control officials.
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Matt, thanks for bringing this story to us. We have two fantastic kids; can’t imagine what our life would have been like if we had been deprived of one of them or been forced to live our life under the specter of the “baby police” knocking on our door. Stories like this remind us of just how good it is to live in a country where our governmental and cultural values so strongly militate against such a repressive approach to family planning.
Yeah, but we also don’t live in a country with 1.2 billion people in it.
I don’t live in a country with 1.2 billion people either. Population control is no excuse for aborting GOD ordained lives.
Prevention and education is much cheaper. Abortion has never been a solution. Is Terrorism a solution for overpopulation? Maybe, killing adults, lot of adults, may prevent many pregnancies…
It’s easy to sit here in the U.S. and tell the Chinese they are wrong. But another thing to be in China with 1.2 billion people. If China’s government had not started the one child/family policy back in 1980 China’s population today would be 1.7 Billion(China’s estimate), and exploding to who knows how high in a few years. With all the economic and social problems exploding population growth will cause (famine, plague, war). Maybe China’s government should have just let nature take it’s course to cull the over population the old fashioned way?
Forced abortion is bad. But isn’t it the fault of the man and women for getting pregnant, not the governments fault. Maybe let them have this extra child and then sterilize both the man and the women?
Yeah its the parents fault!
They know that their government has a policy, and they intentionally snubbed their nose at it and disobeyed the law, they deserve the consequences.
If your county had a death penalty for jay-walking, and a person then knowingly commits they crime of jay-walking, surely they deserve to die, right? Makes sense to me. Can’t blame the government, they just make and enforce the laws. Its the peoples’ fault for breaking the law and bringing the consequences on themselves.
So when a woman gets pregnant, from her husband, with their second child, here’s what happens.
She is literally snatched off the street by government officials. Beaten and restrained, strapped to a hospital bed and given an injection that will kill the fetus and induce labor.
Testimony of a victim to the US Congress:
“The room was full of Moms who had just gone through a forced abortion. Some Moms were crying, some Moms were mourning, some Moms were screaming, and one Mom was rolling on the floor with unbearable pain.”
They knew the law. They brought it all upon themselves.
What an awful thing to say. Each life is precious, special, and should be treasured. If a woman had 7 children and some were deaf and some were blind and she had syphilis would you sterilize her? If you did, you just killed Beethoven!!
What a heart-wrenching dilemma. In their position, being born into a place where you are ordered not to fulfill the natural human longing for family, would we be so different? Even when global concerns of population growth loom so large, what a hard sentence to live out!! Forced abortion seems to me a kind of torture, and will leave wounds that cut deep into the soul of this nation, regardless of what the statistics say.
Thank you for bringing this story to your readers. May it somehow pave the way for an answer that gives hope to these people.
We have recently come back from Beijing, while walking in the city near to a subway we saw a young pregnant woman kneeling on the pavement with a large card in front of her with Chinese characters all over it. People were reading the card and looking at her. I do not know how long she had to kneel there. I can only guess that it was a public humiliation.
Forcing women to abort their baby is similar to blasting a bomb in a city just because population is going beyond resources.This is absurd preventation n education regarding the problem is a better solution.
I agree with k, all life is from God. Having an abortion dosn’t make you “unpregnant”, it makes you the mother of a dead baby.
An instructor once said that mankind suffered times when there were more people than there was food to feed them. Each time, mankind solved the problem with technology. (Many people suffered famine, death, and disease before the technology was developed.) Do you think that technology advancements would deter the need for China to enforce such brutal mandates?
The question here is NOT whether abortion is morally right or wrong. That is completely beside the point. The point IS that women are being FORCED to become sterilized AGAINST THEIR WILL or have abortions AGAINST THEIR WILL. I don’t care if your population is 3 billion- since when does anyone have the right to force another person to abort a child or to sterilize themselves? That is inhumane and sexist, and a total human rights violation. After all, I don’t see them sterilizing the males or abandoning male children. If China wants effective population control, put the $ into education and prevention. The effects may be slower, but definitely not abusive against the female body.
I’d also like to add that had this occurred in the US, it would have caused an uproar. Yet because it’s in China, some people are quick to say it’s a “Chinese problem” and to let them deal with it as they see fit. Well, once we give permission for any government to force anyone into sterilizaion, we open the door to a variety of other human rights violations. Not to mention that it isn’t the Kennedy’s, or the Rocekefeller’s, or the Hilton’s that will be forced to become sterilized. It’s the poor, the uneducated, and usually minorities. This should be a decision made by each individual woman over her own body, not as a method for an easy fix by any government.
I’ve been in China for 10 years now, and I can tell you that these forced abortions and sterilizations are nothing compared to the other things that I have seen here in China. Millions have been executed simply so the military can make a profit selling their organs, people die in HORRIFIC industrial ‘accidents’ because Chinese are more concerned with making money than worrying about how many people have to die for them to get rich. At least the sterilized women get to keep their lives and don’t die in horrific pain.
birth control policy not only relates to human rights, but also associates with environmental, social and economical problems in China. Nowadays the population of China has been 1.3 billion, besides it is growing inch by inch. Ensuing overpopulation, the environment is becoming increasingly worse, and limited recourses give rise to economic pressure, living standards decline, and slow development. If a country can not afford their people, you can imagine how worse their people will be and how kind of distressful life our next generation will lead. If survival has become a problem, human rights are useless any more. Hence reducing the population is urgent.
one child policy is not unmerciful. There are some exceptions from this policy, such as minority, disable parent, parents who have had a disable child, and people who have some other especial situation can have another child, which stands to sense. Most of the developed countries have small population, so that they normally can not understand how hard a country with 1.3 billion people survive and develop. The fact is far from cruelty as many west Medias report.
hello all i want to say is the condions of the children are so bad !!!!!!! and i think you need to do some think about it beause loads of people are sayin you do not do nothink..! when if you put your self in there shoes then you woud not last a day beause the condions are so horrible and i have seen videos and i have been studding china and i think its appalling the way they have to sit in a chair for 24 hours lookin at the floor … would you like that NO U WOUDNT AND I think its just not right that boys are treated better than girls .. in orphanages they have rope tied to them ! now i hope you are goin to do something about this apalling siuation … or i will go futher beause i fell so sorry for them i would take them if i could but … i canrt so good byw for now ….
icant believe this. people need to step up to the plate and fight for wat they think is right or wrong.and i think its the wrong way resolve the population growth.
Abortion is a crime regardless of whoever is condonning it
Good grammar on the last 2 counts!!!! There are a lot of valid points been laid out here, I just think that education is dfefinitely the way forward for China.
To TKH…You obviously don’t have kids. If you do, you shouldn’t. And if you don’t, and ever do, you’ll feel differently. Hopefully. And if not, you don’t deserve them.
You should check your grammer as well!!!!
if you want to see what happens in china with the babies,send me your e-mail and i’ll send you some pictures of it. it was made in spanish but still you can see the pictures.
My english is not very good, I live in Venezuela and I am making a proyect about the One Child Policy. It will be interesting to see graphic material that I can support on with my investigation, Truly thankfull. Joyce
China is doing the right thing by controlling its population growth this is something we all should make a conscious effort of doing. News flash guys the Earth isn’t going to be able to sustain all of us if populations keep rising like they are. Really the Earth would benefit from losing about 3 1/2 billion people or so.
Oh and Karla your suggestion is way too weak and ineffective none of us have that kind of time to educate billions of people on the problem. Just go look at some population projections this is past the woman’s right to choose. But don’t worry eventually we’ll be put in check again by a huge pandemic or a natural disaster.
There are too many people on earth. Every single country should have a one child law, then sterilize the man.
If I lived in China, I wouldn’t even want my children to be born in such a cruel and sad life. Sure forcing abortion is wrong but I believe that if you purposely give birth to a child that you, yourself can’t even take care of (not to mention in addition taking care of yourself), you are worse than the law enforcers in China. If you look at the environment in China–pollution in air, water, and land. Most lived in minimum wage and dangerous working conditions. If you can’t give options to provide your child with happiness then you’re not a good parent.
dont talk about chinese people n im not kidding
STOP HAVING BABIES YOU IDIOTS! I agree with the one-child policy in China. America needs the SAME LAW!
I have been studying the Two Child Limit Law for a paper I have been writing for one of my college classes and when I compair this to China’s One Child Limit I find it more affective than what China is doing to it’s people. If people would actually sit down and read some of the documents about what China does to these women, well let me just say that it is inhumane. When researching this I came across a rich couple in China who had 7 children. All of these children were created via testtubes and implanted into women who were willing to carry these children to term. The only penalities that were placed on this couple were some heafty fines, but othen than that there was nothing. So what that is saying to me is that for people who can afforid it the law does not apply to them! Now in no way do I agree that abortion is acceptiable if the women is not will, now do I agree that there should be a forced sterlization . What would happen if let’s say a women in China( who already has one child) had gotten rapied and could not afforid to get an abortion? Let me take a guess, she would be made to have an abortion, and then get sterlized? Evn though this was not a pregancy of her choosing. P.S. I think that some of these people who post on here should think before they speak , sure the planet is extreemly important, but inorder to keep population to a minium does that give the Government the right to kill it’s people?