China : Forced Abortion at Seven Months

[Mid]

Forced Abortion at Seven Months Prompts Outcry
Reported by Xin Lin for RFA's Mandarin service, and by Pan Jiaqing for the Cantonese service.
Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
2013-03-26

Horrific accounts of a forced abortion perpetrated on a woman who was seven months pregnant by family planning authorities in eastern Anhui province have caused an outcry among Chinese netizens.

Authorities in Anhi's Fengyang county forced a 33-year-old woman surnamed Lu to abort the fetus after they accused her of exceeding her childbirth quota, according to U.S.-based rights group ChinaAid, which interviewed her husband.

"I am her husband," Lu's husband said in a brief telephone interview with the the Christian rights group.

"[The forced abortion] happened on Friday. My wife isn't doing too badly, physically," he said.

"The government has already stepped in to mediate the matter, and they are discussing it now, but we didn't get a lawyer yet," Lu's husband said.

An official who answered the phone at the Fengyang county government offices declined to comment, however.

"I don't know about this," the official said.

Calls to the Fengyang county family planning bureau went unanswered during office hours on Tuesday.

Under China's one-child policy, forced abortions are common, as local officials strive to meet set quotas and impose fines for "excess births."

But experts say the rules governing "excess birth" are unclear and often abused by local authorities.

Photos on social media sites

Photographs showing Lu's fully formed male baby that was expelled from her womb on Sunday after being killed by injection circulated on China's social media sites, causing horror and outrage among netizens.

"In China, any baby that hasn't yet been born isn't counted as a life," said Guangzhou doctor Hu Tao in an interview on Tuesday.

"But from an ethical point of view, if the baby has already formed, it doesn't matter how old it is; it is a human life," he said.

"To abort it when it has already developed is tantamount to murder."

Hu said a seven-month fetus was already a fully formed infant, that could survive outside the womb under the right conditions.

A netizen identified as @98zhongjilongqishi commented: "What had this baby done wrong, to be tortured to death in such an unimaginable way?"

"Please retweet, so we can pursue who is responsible together."

Xu Xiang, founder of the rights website "I Want Justice," said that China's draconian family planning regime highlighted divisions between government and people, and between rich and poor.

"Most people at the grass-roots of society are against it, while people higher up the social ladder are not," Xu said.

"They have ways and means of having a second or a third child if they want to," he said. "Officials often have kids with their mistress or their lover, and those kids immediately get their household registration papers."

Fines

Xu said that China's richest people can afford to pay the heavy fines for having more than one child.

"A fine of 20,000 or 30,000 yuan (U.S. $3,220 or U.S. $4,830) is chicken-feed to them," he said. "But for ordinary Chinese, it's hard enough just managing to get married and have a kid at all...and the family planning policies for them are very intrusive."

Xu said there was a huge groundswell of public opinion against forced abortions because a few photographs had made it onto the Internet in recent years.

"This will just be talked about for a couple of days, but no-one will dare to take a stand...because anyone who does with then be open to revenge attacks [from officials]," he said.

ChinaAid said in a statement on its website that it was monitoring further developments.

"ChinaAid calls on all people of conscience worldwide to stand in unity to strongly condemn this act and to urge the Chinese government to punish the perpetrators and abolish its forcibly enforced family planning policy," it said.

Last June, Shaanxi-based Feng Jianmei was forced to terminate her pregnancy at eight months, sparking global outrage.

After a graphic photo of Feng and her dead baby posted online went viral, the government launched an investigation and had officials, who had demanded a 40,000 yuan (U.S. $6,440) fine from Feng, apologize to her.

Feng's family prepared to sue but settled out of court, saying they were afraid of further persecution and wanted to return to a normal life.

Another woman, Pan Chunyan, told RFA in June that local family planning officials in Fujian province had forced her to get an abortion in her eighth month of pregnancy in April.

Despite official investigation into and apologies over Feng's case, experts say forced abortions have been the norm for decades under China's draconian one-child policy.

According to recent official data, 31 provinces and cities collect totally up to near 28 billion yuan (U.S. $4.4 billion) a year from enforcing the one-child policy.

rfa.org

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Another Bloody One-Child Case in China
3/25/2013

Seven-months pregnant mother in Anhui forcibly aborted by lethal injection
(Warning: Graphic Photo)

China Aid Association

(Chuzhou, Anhui–March 25, 2013) A seven-months pregnant woman was forcibly aborted of her son last Friday by family planning officials who abducted her and took her to a hospital, ChinaAid has learned.

The seven-month-old fetus was killed by lethal injection, and the mother was still hospitalized in Chuzhou, in Fengyang count, Anhui province, at the time of this report.

ChinaAid interviewed the woman's husband, who said he was lawfully protesting to the local government and holding discussions with them. He also expressed gratitude that the outside world was paying attention to the case.

"(I'm) her husband. (The lethal injection) took place last Friday (March 22). (My wife) is doing okay physically," he said. "The government has already stepped forward to negotiate this matter, and the government right now is in the middle of discussions. (We) haven't yet (hired) a lawyer. If the government does not compromise, I'll call you!"

ChinaAid expresses its great shock and condemnation of this bloody case, will closely monitor further developments, and will make every effort to provide assistance to the victims and defend the dignity of God-created human life. ChinaAid calls on all people of conscience worldwide to stand in unity to strongly condemn this act and to urge the Chinese government to punish the perpetrators and abolish its forcibly enforced family planning policy. Let us speak for these babies who cannot utter a sound and protect the right to life of the weakest among us. The right to life is the first human right.

chinaaid.org


pic at link if you must

.

[Yasojack]

nothing much changed then, they used to wait until the baby was born and then, inject the childs brain.

[hazz]

There were several papers that guyinthailand was using from flouridealert and fluoridereaserch that made use of these 7-8 month term 'abortions'. The casualness with which they mentioned the use of these babies does rather suggest that this practice has been so widespread for so long that its seen as normal or at very least so normal nobodies questoning the moraility of the issue. Its rather sad that fluoridealert and flouridereaerch both felt the same way about the matter, despite the lack of 'authority' 'the party' had over these organisations.

The most evil thing on this planet is unquestioning obedience, without it evil would be ineffectual.

[Rainfall]

1,55 children are born per woman in China, that's quite above one child. https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...elds/2127.html

Why isn't their population in decline? The one-child policy has been around for 50 or so years.

[Yasojack]

perhaps the females not count

[hazz]

^Thats a bit glib, the reality of whats going on is not that hard to devine.... but then reality isn't of much interest to those who start with the answers.

the one child per child policy was not implemented until 1979, bit less than 50 years ago

families in rural areas are generally allowed to have a second child if their first child is a daughter. On the basis that half the the children born are girls, then half the families would be allowed to have 2 children and the others 1.... that average would be 1.5.

population growth/decline is composite property dependent upon the relative rates of birth and death. If you have a decline in the birthrate and a decline in the death rate..... then its quite possible to have continuing population growth. what has happened in china is there has been a massive fall in the rate of population growth and in the future this will turn into a decline.... which will leave china with the interesting issue of what do with all these old people given the ever decreasing number of working age people to look after them.