South End Church of Christ :: Article: Forced Abortions in China

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	Forced Abortions in China Aaron Erhardt An Associated Press article entitled "Husband: China Forces Wife to Abort at 8 months" states that a pregnant woman in China was beaten and forced to have an abortion by family planning officials for violating the country's one-child limit. According to her husband, the woman was taken "kicking and screaming" from their home on October 10, 2010 and detained in a clinic for three days. She was then transported to a hospital and injected with a drug that killed her baby. Though illegal, the article states that "police and judicial authorities often look the other way when forced abortion cases are reported and the heavily censored state media shy away from such news." The woman's husband says the police told him that "family planning issues weren't their responsibility." Unfortunately, forced abortion cases in China are not rare. A 2007 article entitled "Cases of Forced Abortions Surface in China" states that "dozens of women in southwest China" were forced to have abortions, some of whom were nine months pregnant. The article features a woman named Wei Linrong, who was seven months pregnant when she was forced to have an abortion by family planning officials. She recalled, "The hospital was full of women who'd been brought in forcibly. There wasn't a single spare bed. The family planning people said forced abortions and forced sterilizations were both being carried out. We saw women being pulled in one by one." Another woman, He Caigan, was nine months pregnant when family planning officials showed up at her house before dawn and forced her to go to the hospital. Although the child was her first, she was forced to have an abortion because she had not married the father. China is clearly using abortion as a means of population control. Pregnant women are being abducted from their homes and forced to abort their babies. How sad! It is hard for America to throw stones, however, knowing that many in our own country, though unforced, use abortion as a means of birth control and gender selection every day. When will the brutality end?