The Chinese government, concerned that their population will outnumber their resources, has long prohibited families from having more than one child. They have enforced this policy through coercion, forced abortion, and infanticide. With the prospect of just one child, most families hope for a boy to carry on their family name; girls are therefore seen as “undesirable.” Many families obtain illegal ultrasounds to determine the gender of their unborn child (ultrasound for non-medical purposes has been illegal in China for over 15 years). Often, if that child is female, she will be aborted. As Americans, we are rightly appalled that citizens could be coerced either not to have children or to abort their unborn children.
Fewer Women
Amidst a culture that allows only one child per family and strongly favors male heirs, China is now realizing the severe problem that they have created. According to a 2000 census, China has about 117 boys for each 100 girls: they have created a nation of bachelors. (In most populations, the ratio is 104 boys to 100 girls.) A Christian Science Monitor (CSM) article stated that social scientists believe that as many as 15% of Chinese men will not have wives. Additionally, according to the most recent State Department Human Rights Report, one consequence of “the country's birth limitation policies” is that 56% of the world's female suicides occur in China, five times the world average and approximately 500 suicides per day.
Testimony
Mrs. Gao Xiao Duan, a former administrator of a Chinese Planned Birth Control Office, testified before Congress about China's policies. Her job required her to perform heartless acts against Chinese women. She explained, “Once I found a woman who was nine months pregnant, but did not have a birth-allowed certificate. According to the policy, she was forced to undergo an abortion surgery. In the operation room, I saw how the aborted child's lips were sucking, how the child’s limbs were stretching. A physician injected poison into the child’s skull; the child died and was thrown into the trash can. I was a monster in the daytime, injuring others by the Chinese communist authorities' barbaric planned-birth policy, but in the evening, I was like all other women and mothers, enjoying my life with my children… [T]o all those injured women, to all those children who were killed, I want to repent and say sincerely that I'm sorry!”
Gao reported that women who did not abort their second child could come home to find their house torched, or they could be arrested and jailed. She provided a videotape (aired by ABC's Nightline) showing a house razed by population-control “cadres” and a jail cell in Gao's former office used to confine noncompliant women.
Population Control as Partial Solution to Global Warming
Members of China’s government have correlated population and climate control. Findings that link human activity to CO2 emissions and global warming are highly contested. However, Zhao Baige, vice-minister of National Population and Family Planning Commission of China (NPFPC), has exploited concerns over global warming, sermonizing the “successes” of China’s one-child policy: China has seen 400 million fewer births, which has she says have resulted in 18 million fewer tons of CO2 emissions annually. She spoke of China’s “great historic contribution to the well-being of society.”
“I’m not saying that what we have done is 100 percent right, but I’m sure we are going in the right direction and now 1.3 billion people have benefited,” according to Zhao. If the U.S. Government continues to believe in global warming and enacts policies to slow its effects, then human lives will be further endangered. If human beings are creating global warming, then fewer human beings would equate to less warming, and the pressure to abort and rid the globe of “useless eaters” of CO2 will intensify. While purporting to protect the natural world and humanity, those who could contribute to slowing and stopping threats will be killed.