If the United States government implemented a law that told couples they could only have one child, how soon would a protest be in place? The answer is immediately, because it is not the government’s place to restrict the reproductive rights of any human being. However, this atrocity is taking place in China at this very moment. This law is known as the one-child law. This policy was introduced by Chairman Mao to help ensure that the flood prone, famine-ridden China could feed its people by reducing its population (China Steps Up). The one-child policy essentially states that couples living in the cities may only have one-child, unless one or both of the couples are from an ethnic minority, or they are both only children, in which case they my have two. In most rural areas a couple my have a second child after a break of seven to ten years. These exceptions are allowed in order to keep the population from having a dramatic recession (China Steps Up). Those who live within the city and have more than one child must abide by the extra birth policy, which requires that the couple must pay an extra tax for the apparent burden they impose on society, because they will use more of communist China’s public resources, which is said to be unfair to those who follow the one-child law (No Relaxation). The regulations also prohibit single women who become pregnant from giving birth (China’s “One Child” Policy Coercive). According to the Chinese government “The one child policy has proven, overall, to be successful in having kept approximately two hundred and fifty million births from happening since 1979,” (China Steps Up) however, at what cost does this so called success take place? One of the most noticeable problems with the one child law is the ratio of men to women; there are approximately one hundred and fifty two males for every one hundred females, all in all that’s about sixty million more men than women (China Steps Up). China’s fertility rate, statistically, is 1.8, which is greater than Germany’s 1.2, but below that of the United States’ 2.1 (China’s One Child Rule). The unbalanced ratio is caused by two factors, the first being that there are naturally one hundred and five males born from every one hundred females. The second, because there has been a growing amount of disdain toward female babies, ever since the one-child law went into effect, the couples figure that if they can only have one child it had better be a boy. In Chinese culture the eldest son is to look after the ageing parents, however, if the Chinese couples can only have one child, that child had better be a boy or they will have no one to care for them as they age (China’s “One-Child” Policy Coercive). This often causes couples to abort their baby completely based on gender. Often times if a couple does give birth to a girl they will leave the infant at an orphanage where they will be most likely placed in what is known as a dying room. (China’s One Child Rule). A documentary was made in 1995 called The Dying Rooms, produced by Kate Blewett. In this documentary one sees an infant girl named Mei-ming, or “no name” in English, who is “tied up in urine soaked blankets, scabs of dried mucus growing across her eyes, her face shrinking to a skull, malnutrition slowly shriveling her two year old body.” (Hilditch). This little girl, Mei-ming, died four days later from sheer neglect after her dying cries had been captured on film. To make things worse, the same treatment happens to almost every girl who enters an orphanage. Approximately fifteen million female babies have disappeared from China’s demographic records since the one-child law went into effect in 1976. It is estimated that ninety percent of the fifty to sixty female babies admitted each month to the Nanning Orphanage in the Guangxi region, where Mei-ming was filmed, will end their lives there within two to three years. One will never find a male child in one of these orphanages unless he is disabled, either physically or mentally, in which case they are treated the same as the female children, with complete neglect. As stated by Kate Blewett, “I did not know human beings could treat children with such contempt, such cruelty. Some of the orphanages we visited were little more than death camps. No child should suffer the kind of neglect we filmed.” (Hilditch). Another issue that has become an increasing problem in China due to the one-child law is forced abortions. The top three forms of birth control used in China are intrauterine devices, often referred to as IUD’s, sterilization, and abortions (China’s “One -Child” Policy). According to author Steven W. Mosher, “coerced abortions, sometimes just days before the baby is due, are now commonplace, as are reports of enforced sterilization, and of hospitals fatally injecting second babies shortly after their birth.” (Hilditch). This is a major problem in large cities, the local government officials and family planning workers will force women to have abortions through any means necessary. Many times they will arrest pregnant women and tell them they can either have an abortion or pay an unreasonably high amount of money for their release; most women end up having the abortion. Often to avoid the family planning and government workers, couples will send the pregnant women to stay with relatives until she gives birth, or they will claim that their newborn belongs to a friend or relative (China Steps Up). In the past year, in the city of Shandong, more than one hundred twenty thousand women were forced to have abortions by the local government (Pocha). One reported story of the forced abortions happened to a couple in their forties, a woman Zhu Hong Ying and her husband Xia Jian Dong; they had one son already and were expecting a second. The family had returned home from a family outing one day and the people from the family planning department were waiting for them to arrive. They forced the seven months pregnant woman into a van and took her to the local family planning clinic where they demanded seven hundred RMB, which is about ninety dollars in American money. This may not seem like very much to us, but that was two months wages for Zhu Hong Ying’s husband (Pocha). According to Zhu Hong Ying, when she was unable to give them the seven hundred RMB, a group of eight people surrounded her and harangued her to have an abortion (Pocha). “I just kept sobbing and begging, but no one listened,” Zhu Hong Ying said. “Finally, I was so weak I just said ‘yes.’ Then a doctor came in and gave me an injection in the stomach. The whole day I didn’t feel anything. The second day, in the early morning, blood and water all flowed out of me. Then the baby came out, but it was dead. It was a boy.” Zhu Hong Ying said that gazing at her dead son was the most heart breaking moment of her life. However, she had no time to grieve; within minutes a nurse came in with a black plastic garbage bag and told her to dispose of the corpse in the large container at the back of the building. Zhu Hong Ying did as she was instructed, and as she opened the lid to the container she saw that there were hundreds of black bags and blood. Zhu Hong Ying also reported that the same scenario had happened to her sister- in- law, who had been five months pregnant, the following year (Pocha). Although this story may seem as though it comes from the twilight zone, it is true. Zhu Hong Ying’s case was widely publicized when it was first let out in the open. These forced abortions are extremely illegal, because according to Chinese law, “only financial penalties can be levied against parents who break China’s thirty year old one child policy.” (Pocha). The local governments have also taken it upon themselves to decide that single woman have no right to have a child, any unmarried woman who becomes pregnant is forced to have an abortion, there is no government that should have the right to make these kinds of decisions (Pocha). The family planning and government workers and have turned the one child law into a holocaust of unborn children (Hilditch). Forced abortions, unwanted little girls, and an unbalanced ratio of men to women are the three most horrible happenings in China due to the one child policy. If these atrocities are allowed to continue China will soon become unstable and collapse, because common sense tells us that any country willing to turn against its children, which in turn are its future, can never be a strong nation. Then, there are also the sociological problems that ensue when there are about sixty million men with no future family; after all it is a proven fact that many unattached men turn to the life of crime. However, thanks to the seventy-four thousand public protests that rocked China recently, the government is now very aware of these issues, and in the past year they have made changes to help prevent further atrocities from occurring without actually having to rescind the one child law (Pocha). The Chinese government now requires that the population and family planning activities are to proceed with efforts aimed at educating women, providing jobs, improving women’s health, and improving women’s status, which includes prohibiting the discrimination against and the maltreatment of women who give birth to female children, and women who are infertile. The law also prohibits sex discrimination and the sex selective abortions and made it illegal to discriminate against, maltreat, or abandon female infants. The new law also calls for special labor protections, including assistance and compensation, for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding. The new law now puts pressure on the men to bear some responsibility for the family planning, where as before it was completely the women’s job (China Turns). The law also discourages early marriages, so that young couples do not have a child too early and requires all schools to provide sex education classes. The government now requires the state to educate citizens on appropriate contraceptive measures, and to guarantee safety and health of those who choose to be sterilized. It will now be easier for citizens to report family planning workers who have used unethical treatment, which in turn means that they can be investigated and punished for infringing upon the citizens personal rights and property, abusing their power, and for seeking and accepting bribes. The local Chinese government is now held accountable by the national government for conducting research as to how the new laws are affecting the public, which means they are forced to be accountable for their actions, and are to fix any problems that occur. (China Turns). However, with good news there usually tends to be some bad new, these new laws and policies are far from perfect. Although the new law allows couples to have more than one child, their situation must fit very specific exceptions, which few qualify for, and if a couple has a second child which does not fall in with the exceptions, then it is considered a criminal act, which is punishable by massive fines. The governments also mandated a detailed population control quota in all family planning and population measures, which means that the forced abortions may continue so that the family planning officials can meet their quota, even if the family planning workers have to do this illegally (China Turns). Although the new policy creates easy access to family planning services for couples, it does not state anything about the right of adolescents, or single people to access these services with convenience. Another issue that ensues is that the law encourages discrimination of couples with more than one child, by granting the couples with only one child rewards such as loans, poverty relief initiatives, and social welfare programs. (China Turns). Another issue according to the Center for Reproductive Rights’ Legal Adviser for Asia, Melissa Upreti is that the new law has some positive woman-friendly features, but it is fraught with inconsistent and contradictory restrictions that ultimately compromise women’s freedom and equality. Chinese women are required to bear a disproportionate burden of their country’s development goals at the expense of their human rights (China Turns). The Chinese government may call their one child law a success, but in reality it is nothing but a holocaust of the children, a holocaust of their future. The women who are single or pregnant with their second child are forced to undergo abortions, women feel obligated to give up their daughters to orphanages, where the girls will be placed in dying rooms, so couple may have a chance for a boy; which in turn causes a dangerously unbalanced ratio of men to women. Nothing but sorrow and death has come from China’s one child policy, even with the new laws the Chinese citizens still are being raped of their human rights, because the government is still restricting their reproductive rights.

Works Cited

China's "One-Child" policy Coercive, State's Dewey Says. http://usinfo.state.gov/gi/Archive/2004/Dec/15-524020.html 15 November 2004. China's One-Child Rule. 27 September 1999. http://geography.about.com/library/weekliy/aa092799.htm 15 September 2004. China steps up 'one child' policy. “BBC News” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/941511.stm 15 November 2004. China Turns One-Child Policy into Law. “Center for Reproductive Rights.” http://www.reproductiverights.org 21 November 2005. Hilditch, Tom. Chinese Culture Studies: A Holocaust of Little Girls. September 1995. http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/text/c-wnhol.html. 21 November 2005. No Relaxation of Chinese 'One Couple, One Child' Policy: Official. “People's Daily”. http://english.people.com.cn/200209/01/eng20020901_102440.shtml. 15 November 2005. Pocha, Jehangir S. 'Law is Dead' Pressure to enforce China's one-child policy has led to horrific crimes by local governments. “Institute for Public Affairs in These Times.” 2005. http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/printdoc 23 November 2005.