China: Global Pressure Stops Threatened Forced Abortion

International   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jun 11, 2012   |   12:38PM   |   Changsha, China

Global pressure appears to have stopped Chinese family planning officials in Changsha, Hunan province from following through with a threatened forced abortion on a woman and her unborn baby in the fifth month of pregnancy.

As LifeNews reported last week, the human rights group ChinaAid, which worked closely with Chen to help him leave China, learned that a 37-year-old woman, Cao Ruyi (pictured right), was dragged from her home and beaten on the morning of June 6 by more than a dozen Chinese family planning officials. The mother, pregnant with a five month old unborn child, was accused of violating China’s “one child” policy because she and her husband, Li Fu, already have a six-year-old daughter.

Now, Cao’s husband Li Fu told ChinaAid founder and president Bob Fu that Cao Ruyi was allowed to return home on Sunday and added that the surveillance personnel from the local family planning office had also been called off. Fu said he “expressed their thanks to ChinaAid for exposing the violent manner in which the local family planning officials dragged his wife to the hospital and the threat of performing a forced abortion on her.”

“He said the domestic and international attention and concern that Fu’s publicity efforts elicited was the reason Ms. Cao was allowed to return home,” Fu added.

However, before her release from the hospital, Cao was forced to sign a guarantee that she will pay a 10,000 yuan (nearly US $1500) “pregnancy termination deposit fee,” which will not be returned if she insists on keeping her baby. Instead the deposit will serve as partial payment of her fine for giving birth to a baby without government permission. She will also be required to pay a “social burden compensation fee” of US $25,000.

“Nonetheless, this is a welcome change,” Fu said. “ChinaAid expresses its thanks for the timely prayers of many brothers and sisters and for the concern expressed by many in the international community, most notably U.S. congressman Chris Smith who contacted the Hunan provincial and Changsha municipal governments directly.”

“Some Chinese netizens have also traveled to Changsha to lodge a formal protest with the procuratorate about Ms. Cao’s illegal detention by local officials. Many house church Christians prayed for Ms. Cao’s unborn child and called the couple to encourage and express support for them,” Fu continued.

Fu said his group calls on the residents of the three U.S. cities that have established sister-city relationships with Changsha to call their mayors and local representatives and urge them to pay attention to this case. Changsha’s sister cities in the United States are: St. Paul, Minnesota; Jersey City, New Jersey; and Annapolis, Maryland.

Those who want to contribute money to help the couple pay the fine for their baby can donate online at: www.denarionline.com/DonorServices/TEMPLATEPAGE.ASPX?COMP_REF=_CHAID&CONTENT=GOSOLG&DS_GO_REF=B3E0C65BFA  

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