China Province Will Ban Some Late-Term Abortions and Gender Selection 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 16, 2004
Guiyang, China (LifeNews.com) — Just two days after a Congressional hearing looking into continued human rights abuses related to China’s population control policies, a provincial government has announced it will prohibit late-term abortions and limit gender selection.
Southwest China’s Guizhou Province will soon prohibit abortions after 14 weeks into the pregnancy. Those who perform such abortions will face fines of about $3,600, or six times the amount of the cost of the abortion.
The city government in Guiyang, the province’s capital, will also prohibit gender identification for nonmedical purposes in an attempt to stem the tide of sex-selection abortions.
However, the abortions that will be prohibited are limited in scope, according to a report in the Beijing Daily Messenger newspaper.
Abortion businesses may continue to perform those it believes are necessary to protect the life or health of the mother and it can perform abortions when the unborn child has severe physical handicaps. Abortions may also be obtained when the mother is divorced or separated.
China continues to face a staggeringly abnormal male-female ratio as Chinese families opt for abortions when ultrasounds reveal a girl baby.
Rural Chinese often kill newborn infant girls as men are preferred to work farms and carry on the family line.
The one-child policy has contributed to the stark gender imbalance in China, which, according to the 2000 census, was about 117 males to 100 females. For sometimes illegal second births, the national ratio was about 152 to 100.
The city’s officials said the new regulations were necessary because the male-female ratio in Guiyang is 129 to 100 and 147 to 100 for couples seeking to have a second or third child.
The result of the gender imbalance has been an increase in forced prostitution and the trafficking of women as more men are unable to find wives.
The gender identification ban is slated to begin January 1 and those who violate the provision will have to pay between $2,500-$3,500 in fines.
Surprisingly, the new laws will also ask pharmacies to stop selling abortion drugs to customers. They will only be licensed to sell the drugs to abortion businesses.
