China's One Child Policy

By Mary McCarthy
Herald Staff Writer
(From the issue of 3/20/03)

Following is the second of a two-part series based on Population Research Institute’s third conference on human rights violations in China. PRI receives no funding from the federal government and defines its goal as putting an end to human rights abuses committed in the name of family planning, and dispelling the myth of overpopulation through research and education.

Each year in the United States, an estimated 1.6 million babies are killed by choice. In 1973, Roe v. Wade made it legal for a woman in America to have an abortion based on the simple decision that she did not want a child.

Each year in China, millions of babies are killed by force. Since the 1979 One-Child Act was enforced, it has become a crime for a woman to conceive a child without permission, and a so-called "unregistered" child will be aborted, or even killed at birth.

While laws in America have made it legal for a woman to decide if her child lives or dies, women in China can only wish they had the option to let their children live.

China began working on the One-Child policy in the 1970s after Chinese scientists traveled to Italy where they read the Club de Roma Report. The report, which was later found to be fraudulent, discussed population growth and the lack of non-renewable resources. After reading this report, Chinese officials decided that China could only support a population of 600 million.

In the late 1970s, Chinese officials began enforcing the One-Child per couple policy. In the 1980s, the policy was amended slightly to allow a second child for couples living in rural regions whose first child had been a girl.

In order to enforce the One-Child policy, after the birth of the first child, the insertion of an intrauterine device (IUD) is mandatory. If a couple is given permission to have a second child, they have to wait four years. Any pregnancies that occur before the fourth year will be terminated. After the second child, either the woman or her husband will be sterilized.

Steve Mosher, president of Population Research Institute, was the first American social scientist to conduct research in China. He lived in rural China in 1979 and experienced, firsthand, the horrors of China’s One-Child policy.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has had a presence in China since the 1980s. UNFPA claims that its presence in China is to help women, and promote women’s rights. According to "UNFPA’s County Program in China: Providing Quality Care, Protecting Human Rights," written in 2001, UNFPA claims that in the 32 counties where it is present, family planning is "fully voluntary," and there is no coercion. It also claims that targets and quotas no longer exist, women can chose the timing and spacing of pregnancies, and abortion is not promoted as a form of family planning.

According to the UNFPA Web site, the priorities of UNFPA include, "protecting young people, responding to emergencies, and ensuring an adequate supply of condoms and other essentials."

UNFPA claims that one of its priorities is to protect young people, but as Population Research Institute representatives found when they visited China in 2001, UNFPA officials are sharing offices with the very people who kill an unimaginable number of children each year in the name of "family planning."

"Conception is a crime that carries the death penalty for the babies," said Guzel Birlik, a woman from China. "Babies, as human beings, have the right to live. Even animals are protected. Why is there no protection for these women?"

Mothers in most third-world countries would consider food and water to be essentials. UNFPA adds condoms to that list.

In September of 2001, PRI conducted an independent investigation of UNFPA in China. Most of the investigation took place in Sihui County, one of 32 counties where UNFPA was present.

PRI had no assistance from China’s government in its investigation and interviews were conducted privately, without Chinese officials present, so those being interviewed would feel free to speak.

The PRI team gathered testimonies from over two dozen victims and witnesses of coercion. In those testimonies, PRI was told, "There is no voluntary family planning in Sihui," and that the coercive family planning in the county included "age requirements for pregnancy, birth permits, mandatory use of IUDs; mandatory sterilization, crippling fines for non-compliance, imprisonment for non-compliance, destruction of homes and property for non-compliance, forced abortion and forced sterilization."

Mosher continues his research, and statements and documents he has gathered recently from China are "damning." Even today, almost 25 years after the One-Child policy was first enforced, Mosher has found, "Babies are being killed."

A Chinese doctor, head of surgery, said people assisting in abortions are instructed to cover the mouths of babies being aborted to guarantee that babies don’t cry out. If a baby does cry, it is regarded as an "accident" because "it would sadden the woman to the point of hysterics."

Of course there are a small percentage of children who are born in hiding, without the government’s permission. These children are referred to as "black children," and the parents of these children must pay numerous fines in order to register their children for medical care, education or employment.

Residents of Sihui County told PRI investigators that population control is invoked by coercion and force by the government, and they laughed at the existence of UNFPA’s "client-oriented" approach.

Guzel Birlik is both a victim and a witness of China’s One-Child policy. After the birth of her first child, she was obliged to have an IUD inserted, and although she suffered from a severe allergic reaction to the device, it was illegal for her to remove it for three years.

In 1997, she was accepted for asylum by the Canadian government. She has visited China in the past year, and continues to be in contact with women there.

"At this very moment, thousands of little babies are being murdered by the Chinese government," said Birlik. "I am speaking not with my voice alone, but with the cries of thousands of babies who are being murdered. These women and children suffer, and cry out to the world, but their voices are not heard."

Nobody that Birlik spoke to in China has heard about UNFPA’s claims that abortion policies are more relaxed. When she asked a woman if she was going to have a third child, the woman said, "You went to Canada and you forgot our policy?"

According to Birlik, the one-child family policy and practices of coercion are "very strict, and continue today."

Birlik is part of China’s Uyghur population, a minority group from Xinjiang Providence in Western China. The Uyghurs are particularly persecuted by the Chinese because they practice Islam and possess an ethnic culture different from mainstream China.

"Everyone has the God-given right to live," said Birlik. "My sorrows, my feelings, my agony, my emotions are all true because I was a victim."

UNFPA responded to PRI’s investigative findings by conducting its own field research. The group from UNFPA spent five days in China, where they went on guided tours of family planning clinics, accompanied by Chinese officials.

Based on its guiding principles, UNFPA is bound to accept on good faith, the claims of the Chinese government. Because they have not proved that coercion does exist, UNFPA claims that it does not exist.

In July 2002, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell determined that UNFPA was in violation of the Kemp-Kasten amendment, which prohibits the U.S. from funding organizations that support coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization. Because of this, $34 million was pulled from UNFPA and designated to go to USAID programs in Afghanistan.

USAID efforts in Afghanistan, where infant and maternal mortality rates are at an all-time high, do not consist of simply handing out contraceptives or using abortions as a birth control measure, but it provides immunizations to children, pre- and postnatal care, trains midwives and helps women so that they have healthier babies.

PRI conducted a survey in Afghanistan in June of 2002 and found that of the 140 women surveyed, 25 percent of them had received an abortion or had been sterilized in a United Nations refugee camp.

These same women said that they want clean water, immunizations for their children and the chance to learn more about natural family planning. The majority of them want more children.

In this same area of the world, UNFPA is operating mobile "reproductive health clinics," where abortions can be performed.

While many lawmakers would like to see the money used to support USAID in Afghanistan, some congressmen are withholding the money.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is, according to Sandy Rios, president of Concerned Women for America, "seeking to undermine the president’s authority." Leahy is pro-abortion, and feels that the U.S. should support UNFPA.

"While Washington plays games, women in both countries suffer," said Rios. "If they succeed, more Chinese women will be forced to abort babies, courtesy of U.S. tax dollars."

This year, UNFPA unveiled its Fifth China Country Program that will last until 2005, and it claims not only that the Fourth China Country Program was "a success beyond expectation," but that the Fifth Program will be expanded from 32 counties, to up to 800.

In January, Congressman Chris Smith (R-N.J.), vice president of the international relations committee, spoke to the European parliament. Because the international media has not focused much attention on China and its policies, many were disbelieving that coercion still exists.

"I am disgusted beyond words that a UN agency would continue to see that they’ve so aided and abetted this kind of action against women," said Smith. "There’s been such denial on the part of the international community that it is breathtakingly tragic."

Smith feels that "rather than just take their funding away, they ought to be held accountable in a court of law. It’s not just those who do the killing, but those who aid and abet. This is all about repression."

On behalf of PRI, Mosher urges people to contact their representatives in Congress to ensure that UNFPA will receive no support from the U.S., and that the money will go instead to USAID to assist women in Afghanistan who are seeking help, not abortions. 

Copyright ©2003 Arlington Catholic Herald.  All rights reserved.