Friday, January 23, 2009

Obama and Forced Abortions in China

McCormack, J. (2009 Jan. 16). Obama and Forced Abortions in China. Weekly Standard Blog. Retrieved: http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/01/obama_and_forced_abortions_in_1.asp on Jan. 23, 2009.

Obama and Forced Abortions in China

The BBC reports:

The authorities in China say they have found that most Chinese women would like to have more than one child.

Family-planning officials say their research indicates that 70% of women want to have two babies or more.

Chinese couples who ignore China's strict one-child policy must pay fines and often face discrimination at work.

The authorities say the policy, which will not be relaxed, has prevented hundreds of millions of births and has helped to make people wealthier. ...

China's one-child policy has been hugely controversial at home and abroad, as enforcement of it has involved forced abortions and other abuses.

It has also been blamed for a gender imbalance, as a traditional preference for boys has persuaded some parents to abort girl foetuses.


Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush all refused to fund the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) because the organization helps China execute its one-child policy (and because the UNFPA also funds the occasional unseemly eugenics program). But Barack Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, has pledged to reverse the course of his Republican predecessor and fund the UNFPA. It's somewhat ironic that feminist organizations are the interest groups pushing most strongly for UNFPA funding.

Apparently, if thousands of Chinese women are forced to abort their unborn children--and baby girls, in particular, are targeted for death--well that's just collateral damage in the cause of "women's rights", in the view of groups like NOW. Of course, to be fair, feminists claim that UNFPA does not directly support forced abortions in China. I'm skeptical that UNFPA equipment and funds do not aid some of the doctors performing forced abortions, but it's indisputable that that the Communist party gives local bureaucrats population control goals to meet. When number of births exceeds the desired limit, the bureaucrats sometimes decide to round up women and abort their children. For example, in April 2007 in Guangxi province, "61 pregnant women were injected with an abortive drug after being dragged to local hospitals".
If Obama funds China's population control program without requiring China to prosecute those performing forced abortions--or, ideally, requiring China to do away with its one-child policy altogether--there will be a lot more horrifying stories coming out of China--brought to you, in part, by the American taxpayer.

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