Despite weeks of international furor surrounding the treatment of forced abortion opponent Chen Guangcheng by the Chinese government, the Planned Parenthood abortion business waited until Monday to make any comment about his situation.
The abortion giant issued a statement lauding the activist and condemning the “scourge of coercive reproductive policies,” claiming that, “reproductive self-determination — free from coercion — is essential to strong and healthy families and, more broadly, our global society.”
The safe passage of Chinese human rights advocate Chen Guangcheng and his family to the United States has focused the world’s attention on the scourge of coercive reproductive policies. We commend Mr. Chen’s bravery in exposing human rights injustices even in the face of threats to his personal safety. Reproductive self-determination — free from coercion — is essential to strong and healthy families and, more broadly, our global society.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) opposes coercive and inhumane reproductive policies and practices, including China’s one-child policy and the illegal practices of forced abortion and coerced birth control reported in some localities. We believe in reproductive self-determination and we advocate for public policies that guarantee these rights and ensure access to safe and legal services.
Domestically and with our partners internationally, PPFA works to provide comprehensive reproductive health care services in settings which protect the essential privacy and rights of each individual.
The continued oppression of Chinese families through coercive reproductive policies must end. PPFA will continue to vigorously advance our mission of expanding reproductive health care as a basic human right worldwide by collaborating with other organizations, advocating for funding and regulatory policies, and amplifying a human rights perspective.
The statement is not going over well with Lila Rose, the head of Live Action, which has exposed Planned Parenthood abortion clinics of covering up cases of sexual abuse, statutory rape and arranging abortions for women who are victims of sex trafficking.
As Live Action has previously uncovered, Planned Parenthood has helped enable sex trafficking. In a video sting in New Jersey, a Planned Parenthood manager was caught coaching a man and a woman posing as sex traffickers on how to obtain secret abortions, STD testing, and contraception for their female underage sex slaves, and make their whole operation “look as legit as possible.”
Rose says there is mounting evidence that Planned Parenthood has been a key part of fostering this culture of forced abortions.
“Planned Parenthood claims to be against coerced abortions, but the abortion group’s institutional cover up of sexual abuse and sex trafficking reveals the opposite. Young girls are often coerced by their abusers and brought to Planned Parenthood abortion clinics–instead of reporting the abuse, Planned Parenthood partners with the abuser,” Rose said. “Despite any peppy words they can put out in a press release, Planned Parenthood’s cover up of sexual abuse and trafficking enables the victimization and coercion of vulnerable young girls.”
Rose pointed to a recent report by Americans United for Life which noted that, “Substantial and still-developing evidence indicates that many Planned Parenthood clinics fail to report all instances of suspected abuse, and instead advise minors and their abusers on how to circumvent the mandatory reporting laws.
Speaking at New York University, where he has a fellowship to study, Chen thanked “especially friends in the media” and “common citizens of the United States who have expressed their support.”
“Acts of retribution in Shandong may not have been abated, and my rights to practice law have been curbed, and we hope to see in the future a thorough investigation into these event,” said Chen, who added he is worried about his nephew Chen Kegui, who was arrested after guards stormed his house following Chen’s escape from home detention.
“We should link our arms to continue in the fight for the goodness in the world, and to fight against injustice. I hope everybody works with me to promote justice and fairness in China,” he added.
“It’s as the Chinese saying goes: ‘Nothing in the world is difficult for one who sets his mind to it,’ ” he said.
Rep. Chris Smith, the pro-life Congressman who highlighted Chen’s plight in two hearings, says he is very worried about Chen’s family and associates in China.
“After years of enduring physical and psychological torture, imprisonment, and hate, the man, Chen Guangcheng, who defended Chinese women from the crime of forced abortion is finally free,” Smith said.
“Great human rights leaders are never separated from the noble causes they espoused. Think of Lech Walesa and Solidarity, Nelson Mandela and opposition to apartheid, Aung San Suu Chi and democracy in Burma. Chen’s cause is ending China’s One Child Policy and forced abortion,” said Smith. “Not all the Chens are free and safe, however. The Chinese government must immediately end its deplorable retaliation against Chen’s family and friends who remain in China.”
Chen had languished in a Chinese hospital since American officials reportedly agreed to a deal with Chinese leaders to allow Chen to come to the United States to study and escape the nation that imprisoned him and forced him to endure house arrest for years because he exposed and helped the victims of a massive forced abortion and sterilization campaign in his hometown of Linyi.
In China, Chen documented 7,000 such forced abortion cases, taking down the names and addresses of those women who were victimized, as well as the particulars of the officials who committed these crimes. That is why the Chinese Communist Party is so eager to silence Chen. Not only has he exposed their crimes against the Chinese people, he has at least the potential to generate massive protests against the brutal one-child policy.
The documents Chen Guangcheng compiled place the focus squarely on why China subjected him to years of house arrest: brutal forced abortions.
Reggie Littlejohn, President of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, has released a compendium of Chen Guangcheng’s field notes about forced abortion and sterilization in China and the stories the blind attorney compiled are shocking, even for those familiar with the forced abortion abuses that take place as a result of China’s one-child policy.
“In the astonishment surrounding Chen Guangcheng’s extraordinary escape from house arrest, let us not forget why he was arrested,” Littlejohn told LifeNews. “In 2006, Chen exposed the Chinese government’s systematic, massive use of forced abortion and involuntary sterilization to enforce its “One Child Policy.’”
WRWF obtained a copy of Chen’s field notes and has released the first English translation of them.
“A member of Chen’s team, human rights attorney Teng Biao, drafted this 2005 investigative report into coercive family planning in Linyi City, Shandong Province,” Littlejohn explained. “The report contains extensive witness statements from cases Chen and his team were investigating before Chen was jailed.”
The blind Chinese human rights lawyer, who caught the attention of the world over the past two weeks in his bid to escape house arrest in China by seeking help in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, testified to Congress via telephone about his well-being and that of his family and brave supporters Tuesday at a hearing held by Congressman Chris Smith,a New Jersey Republican.
“Chen Guangcheng is among the bravest defenders of women’s rights in the world,” Smith said. “Chen defended thousands of women from the ongoing, most egregious systematic state-sponsored exploitation and abuse of women in human history — pervasive forced abortion and involuntary sterilization as part of China’s one child per couple policy — and has suffered torture, cruel and degrading treatment, unjust incarceration, and multiple beatings as a result.”
Smith added: “The sheer magnitude of this exploitation of women has been largely overlooked and trivialized by many — and even enabled. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has for over 30 years supported, defended, and whitewashed the crimes against women and children Chen struggled to expose. That’s why President Reagan and more recently President Bush defunded the UNFPA. In an indefensible reversal, the Obama Administration has provided approximately $165 million to the UNFPA.”
