China Will Not Stop One-Child, Forced Abortion Policy After 30th Anniversary
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 28, 2010
Beijing, China (LifeNews.com) — The head of the Chinese agency responsible for the family planning policy that bans couples from having more than one child — enforced by local officials with forced abortions and human rights abuses — says the nation will keep the policy for decades to come.
The announcement comes on the heels of the thirtieth anniversary of the policy, which has been soundly condemned by pr-life advocates but virtually ignored by abortion supporters and President Barack Obama.
"I, on behalf of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, extend profound gratitude to all, the people in particular, for their support of the national course," said Li Bin, who leads the commission, according to a CNN report.
"So we will stick to the family-planning policy in the coming decades," she said, CNN reported, quoting the government-run China Daily publication.
The comment also came under criticism from Human Life International’s Director of International Coordination, Joseph Meaney.
"The Chinese government is stubbornly persisting in leading their country into a demographic disaster with their population control policy," said Meaney.
"It is simply incomprehensible that the Chinese National Population and Family Planning Commission can seriously mean to extend this destructive policy for an unspecified number of decades into the future," he said.
"China’s population is currently projected to start shrinking in absolute numbers by 2026, but the coerced low fertility of Chinese women means that the Peoples’ Republic of China is one of the fastest ageing societies in the world," he added.
Meanwhile, LifeNews.com spoke last week with Congressman Chris Smith after he held a press conference to condemn the anniversary of the one-child policy.
He condemned Obama for not speaking out against the policy and the forced abortions and human rights abuses — ranging from imprisonment and physical violence to loss of jobs and governmental economic support.
Obama "has no standing to be lecturing the rest of the world" on human rights abuses while ignoring what is taking place in China, Smith said.
"He has been worse than indifferent," Smith added, saying the United States is "now part of the problem as well" as long as Obama turns a deaf ear.
He said Obama needs to reverse course and press for de-funding the UNFPA, which he funded and which supports and works closely with the family planning officials implementing the one-child rule.
"We stand with the oppressor as it stands now, not the oppressed," he said, because of the funding.
Smith said the U.S. is a member of the human rights council in the United Nations and it could launch complaints against China in that forum.
Smith told LifeNews.com one of the ways in which he could better press for the rights of Chinese people victimized by the policy is if Republicans are given control of the House.
He could press for enforcement of the laws he helped put in place to allow more inclusive asylum policies for the families victimized by forced abortions and sterilizations.
"Men were meant to be included," he said in response to a question about appeals courts that are taking differing stances on the policy, saying there are "well-founded fears of persecution and forced sterilization concerns" and that they are not just for women.
He said a bill is not needed "but maybe we need to pass one under this administration."
About the continuation of the policy, Smith said that, while it may continue, there is a "growing recognition within China that they have such an aging population and they will soon be at the point where they realize they are missing millions of girls resulting in men who can’t find wives to marry and the country can’t support people in older age."
China has a "demographic sinkhole of unprecedented proportions," Smith said.
He told LifeNews.com some media reports over the last year showing a relaxing of the policy "should be taken with a grain of salt" because "women still have to have compulsory birth control and compulsory abortions" even if the family planning regime cites a "choice" in the type of birth control as the relaxation.
He said some of the reports of the moderating of the one-child policy are merely reports of pilot programs that have not come into full force — and may never come into full force.
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