China and It's 1 Child Policy

 

Even if China’s One-Child Policy were modified, it would not end forced abortion

By Reggie Littlejohn
Editor’s note. Over the last few months we’ve read a number of stories which argue that China is about to do away with its compulsory one-child policy whose linchpin in forced abortion. Today’s story from the British publication, The Daily Telegraph, is the latest example.
NRL News Today asked Reggie Littlejohn to comment, not only on this story but also on the suggestion that if there are modifications to the policy that would mean the end of forced abortion. She is president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers and has spoken at the last two National Right to Life Conventions.
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Reggie Littlejohn (left) with NRLC President Carol Tobias at the 2013 NRLC closing banquet.

Under the sensationalistic headline, “China to ditch it one-child policy as ageing crisis looms,” The Telegraph reports that China’s Family Planning Commission “is studying proposals to lift the ban on a second child, if either parent is an only child.” The fact that the FPC is studying such proposals in no way justifies the blaring headline that China is “to ditch” the policy. The Chinese government has not committed itself to this change in the policy. It is merely studying the possibility, as it has for years.

Already in many places, a couple may have a second child if both parents are themselves only children. The Family Planning Commission is merely studying whether to extend this exception to couples in which only one parent is an only child. Even if this proposal were to be adopted, this would be far from a wholesale abandonment of the Policy.

To the contrary, on January 14, 2013, Wang Xia, the Chair of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, stated that China “must unwaveringly adhere to the One Child Policy as a national policy to stabilize the low birth rate as the primary task.” See, “Chinese Official Plans to Keep the One Child Policy, Says Maintaining Low Birth Rate is a Priority.”
In addition, instituting a two-child policy will not end forced abortion. The problem with the One Child Policy is not the number of children “allowed.” Rather, it is the fact that the CCP is telling women how many children they can have and then enforcing that limit through forced abortion, forced sterilization and infanticide. Even if all couples were allowed two children, there is no guarantee that the CCP will cease their appalling methods of enforcement.

Regardless of the number of children allowed, women who get pregnant without permission will still be dragged out of their homes, strapped down to tables and forced to abort babies that they want, even up to the ninth month of pregnancy. It does not matter whether you are pro-life or pro-choice on this issue. No one supports forced abortion, because it is not a choice.

Further, instituting a two-child policy will not end gendercide. Indeed, areas in which two children currently are allowed are especially vulnerable to gendercide, the sex-selective abortion of females. According to the 2009 British Medical Journal study of 2005 national census data, in nine provinces, for “second order births” where the first child is a girl, 160 boys were born for every 100 girls. In two provinces, Jiangsu and Anhui, for the second child, there were 190 boys for every hundred girls born. This study stated, “Sex selective abortion accounts for almost all the excess males.” Because of this gendercide, there are an estimated 37 million Chinese men who will never marry because their future wives were terminated before they were born. This gender imbalance is a powerful, driving force behind trafficking in women and sexual slavery, not only in China, but in neighboring nations as well.
Moreover, the Chinese Communist Party periodically modifies the One Child Policy, but the coercion at its core remains. Reports of these tweaks — especially when mischaracterized by western media — throw the human rights world into confusion and blunt genuine efforts to end forced abortion in China. On September 9, 2010, for example, TIME ran the headline, “China Could Overthrow One-Child Rule.” Myriad other news sources followed suit. This dramatic headline was based on the fact that China proposed to run a pilot program allowing some couples to have two children. Soon afterwards, on September 25, 2010 – the 30th anniversary of the One Child Policy – a top population control official praised the policy and stated that China “will stick to the family planning policy in the coming decades.” Moreover, despite this pilot program, numerous reports of late-term forced abortions have surfaced since 2010, including the forced abortion at seven months of Feng Jianmei in June 2012.
For a discussion of forced abortion cases that have arisen in 2011-2012, read WRWF’s Complaint to the UNCSW.
For a discussion of forced abortion and other egregious violations of human rights in connection with coercive population control, read WRWF’s 2013 Complaint to the UNCSW.

Source: NRLC News