Abortion and China

 

Chinese authorities deny “abortion quotas,” local officials say otherwise

By Dave Andrusko
Four officials from different villages in Lanling county in Shandong Province told Chinese media that they were under an “abortion quota” and resorted to buying the records of women who had already aborted to meet the requirements.
Liu Xin, writing for the Global Times, reported that the quota was “one abortion for every 1,000 villagers, and each of them was assigned a quota of two to eight abortions in April.”
The health authorizes of Linyl, which administers Lanling county, discounted the allegations. They said they have yet to receive any complains about an “abortion quota.” The Lanling government says the report is “inaccurate,” according to thepaper.cn.

A deputy director of the family planning bureau in Lanling tried to finesse the allegations. Identified only as Bao, the official told the Global Times, “We only asked them to take remedial actions to persuade women [breaking the one-child policy] who have been pregnant for less than five months to have an abortion.” 

But a village official in Luozhaung district in Linyl contradicted Bao, telling the Global Times that they had a quota to have a certain number of women get abortions in the village. “More than 70 percent of the quota for May has been met,” said the official who wished to remain anonymous.
Another village official, who used the pseudonym Xiao Xu, told the Global Times that some officials bought the names of women who’d already aborted to meet the quotas.
“Officials who have not met their quota would be punished and in order to meet the quotas, we have to pay the money for doctors or middlemen for the abortion information out of our own pocket,” said Xiao Xu.

Linyl’s family planning bureau has employed highly controversial tactics in the past. “In December 2014, local media reported that officials seized a 10-month-old baby in an effort to pressure the parents to pay the penalty for having a child outside the family planning rules,” Xin reported.
With very limited exceptions, Chinese women are limited to one child. The policy is brutally enforced, as we have reported many times in this space

Source: NRLC News