Samira Shackle

On the margins: a look at race, culture, and world affairs.

China: "forced abortion" photograph highlights brutality of one child policy

Photo of woman forced to abort seven month old foetus causes outrage.

By Samira Shackle Published 14 June 2012 17:33

Forced abortion victim Zhang Yuhong attends a press conference calling for an end to gendercide in Washington, June 2011. Photograph: Getty Images

By now, you may well have seen, or heard about, the photograph that has shocked the world. In the image – which we have chosen not to reproduce here – a young woman lies dazed on a hospital bed, next to her recently aborted foetus.

The woman is Feng Jiamei, from the Shaanxi province of China. She was forced to undergo the procedure in the seventh month of pregnancy, because she could not afford to pay the hefty fine incurred by having a second baby under the country’s strict one child policy.

Feng’s husband Deng Jiyuan told the Global Times that five men forcibly delivered a poisonous injection to his wife, after making her sign an agreement to having the abortion. He said that she was traumatised, which perhaps goes without saying. The brutality is difficult to fathom, not least given that a baby born at seven months has a strong chance of survival.

While local officials in Zhenping county, where the incident took place, denied that Feng was coerced into having the abortion, a preliminary investigation by the Shaanxi Provincial Population and Family Planning Commission confirmed that it had been forced.

The one child policy was introduced in 1979 to slow the birth rate. Under the rule, married, urban couples must have only one child. There are exemptions for rural couples, ethnic minorities, and parents with no siblings, but they are rare.

The Shaanxi Provincial Council expressed shock at the incident, and promised to investigate and bring the perpertrators to justice. However, US-based charity All Girls Allowed notes that forced abortion, often referred to by the euphemistic term of “remedial measures” (bujiju cuoshi) is explicitly endorsed in the regulations of 18 of China’s 31 provincial jurisdictions.

Due to the one child policy, China’s rates of abortion are sky-high: on average, 8 million women have one each year. There are 300,000 officials whose job is to enforce the one child policy, backed up by a network of 92 million members who assist with enforcement and informing. The methods used vary between provinces, but include random pregnancy tests on married women, and unspecified “follow up” services, which can include abortion or sterilisation. All Girls Allowed reports that the vaginas of rural woman are routinely checked for recent births, while officials are often given a financial incentive structure to meet abortion and sterilisation quotas. It is easy to see how this policy leads to coercion.

All of these details are quite shocking in their cruelty and invasiveness. Under these policies, a woman’s body is treated as public property, an object rife for inspection. Perhaps it is little wonder that China is the only country in the world where women are more likely to commit suicide than men. The Beijing Suicide Research and Prevention Centre reported in 2009 that the suicide rate for women was three times higher than for men, and around 500 women in China kill themselves each day.

Underpinning the whole feminist argument in favour of abortion rights is the notion of choice: a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body, and to choose whether she gives birth to a child. This incident acts as a powerful reminder that abortion itself can be used as a tool for oppression, violently undermining a woman’s control over her own body.

Tags: Abortion China

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24 comments

Sat, 2012-06-30 15:07 — Mr Humanus Wright (not verified)

Once again we are being told about technology in the Civilian Sector that has been in existance within the military sector, 10 to 20 years before it has been openly publicized, within the civilian sector. We are talking about the UKUSA agreement and TTCP agreements, Porton Down (QinetiQ - DSTL - DERA), RSRE (Worcestershire), and DARPA, NASA and CIA-DST. This technology is way passed its' study/experimental stage, and is in full implementation, being used activily on a procedural level, with consent and without consent. If you refer to some of the illegal programs that were being occustrated in the 50s, 60s and 70s, under ARTICHOKE, MKULTRA stemming from 'Operation PaperClip', you can gain an insight to the level of depravity that the medicial, scientific research, intelligence and military establishments were willing to go to, and how there is a huge deception on how these technologies and programs are now being presented to the public audience: William Sargant, St Thomas's Hospital, Donald Ewan Cameron, Harry Bailey and Galbraith, amongs others ... The Radio Telemetry Laboratory, and Military Radiations Signals Intelligence, Neural Oscillations, and the Central Nervous System, with ELF or VLF manipulation; under the subject heading Brain Computer Interface (BCI), Remote Neural Monitoring (RNM) and Synthetic Telepathy. Nano-Medicines have hugely allowed this early pioneering 'torture' experimentation to be unimaginably enhanced beyond all scientific expectations, for manipulation of test subjects/live subjects, 'Unethical Human Experimentation' - in the ten of thousands (every living organism has a unique 'Bioelectric Field').

Wed, 2012-06-27 01:05 — Spondulicks (not verified)

The population of China is approximately 1.3 bn, having been between 700-800m in the seventies. What do you think it would have been had there not been a population-control policy? Do you think China would perhaps have had a food-shortage problem? Would mass starvation be preferable to abortion to readers of the NS, as long as it is only Chinese who are starving to death? Is starvation "brutal"? If, say, a third of the Chinese population starved to death, would that be "brutal"? Limiting population growth has enabled China to lift 400m people out of poverty in the last 30 years. The alternative would have been the Ethiopian scenario, in which all economic gains have been swallowed up by a doubling of the population, leaving most people constantly on the brink of destitution.

If you accept that population-control is necessary, how would you enforce it? By letting some people get away with having extra children?

Wed, 2012-06-20 09:16 — P Smith (not verified)

That's absolutely horrifying, but it's no suprise to hear that it happens in a country which murders its political prisoners for their organs to sell to transplant tourists and make money from. It's hard enough to raise the issue of human overpopulation at any time, but news like this makes it near impossible. Reasonable voices suggesting we voluntarily have fewer children get lumped in with butchers like the Chinese government.

And yet, the far right in the US would do the exact same thing if they could, except in reverse. They not only would ban abortion, they would imprison women who miscarried, treat women as murderers for having abortions, and rape would effectively become legal, women forced to carry children to term. The only reason they don't is that they can't get away with it...for now.

Extremism always the source of atrocity. It doesn't have to be a particular source, any religion, economic or political view is capable of rationalizing anything.

Wed, 2012-06-27 01:08 — Spondulicks (not verified)

Butchers? Why would butchers want to lift 400m people out of poverty, and be striving to do the same for the rest?

Wed, 2012-06-20 01:26 — Hibernia86 (not verified)

While I would accept, in extreme situations, a policy that fairly limited couples to one child (no special treatment for the rich, ect), I think voluntary contraception use usually does the trick and I would never condone a 7th month abortion, forced or otherwise, unless the mother's life was in danger or there as an extreme medical issue with the child.

Sun, 2012-06-17 20:46 — joe smith (not verified)

Actually, I'd prefer a no birth policy for the Mozzies.

Sun, 2012-06-17 20:43 — joe smith (not verified)

I wish they'd do something like this in the Moslem countries.

Sun, 2012-06-17 03:48 — Citric Acid (not verified)

This policy is no longer suit for human. It will be forbidden soon.
Ascorbic Acid http://www.protexinternational.com

Fri, 2012-06-15 13:16 — Citric Acid (not verified)

This policy is no longer suit for human. It will be forbidden soon.
Citric Acid http://www.protexinternational.com

Fri, 2012-06-15 10:12 — Eintragen (not verified)

Its a very interesting article, but how about Eintragen in

Fri, 2012-06-15 09:37 — Earthling,unfortunately (not verified)

China is practising Eugenics on its population, just as Hitler did with "undesirables" - using them as a testing ground for human experimentation, not forgetting the mass genocide of Jews. Eugenics could enhance people's lives by eradicating inherited diseases, for instance, but it seems that evil rules. Eugenics is used throughout the world to force people into situations they don't want, need or ask for.

It has gone beyond population control, with mass sterilisation and forced abortions. We thought we had seen it all with Hitler and his evil cohorts, but his legacy lives on. We are STILL witnessing genocide, both by the gun and starvation through embargos. Was it Hitler's body found in the bunker or that of his cousin? Is he still alive and living in South America with some of his cohorts, reminising and chuckling over today's efforts?

Wed, 2012-06-27 01:10 — Spondulicks (not verified)

Sources, please. Are you seriously trying to equate China with Hitler's Germany?

Fri, 2012-06-15 06:58 — rain (not verified)

China's one child policy worked, it's just a pity Africa didn't try it and China does have superior moral values. Chineses mothers are renowned for their disciplinary streak and high moral standards, again it's just a pity we in the West no longer share China's high moral standards and work ethic.

Fri, 2012-06-15 09:41 — Earthling,unfortunately (not verified)

Are you THICK or just SICK?

Fri, 2012-06-15 05:13 — jesisweet12 (not verified)

obat kanker

Fri, 2012-06-15 02:59 — Tan Seow Ching (not verified)

Time for china to change one child policy to two child instead.

Fri, 2012-06-15 02:57 — Tan Seow Ching (not verified)

It is the time that China should change its one child policy to two child instead.

Fri, 2012-06-15 00:50 — Malt (not verified)

I hope journalist and academic Martin Jaques, who wrote an article on China as the New World Order, is reading this article and is ashamed now to even think that China has superior moral values than the rest of the world. He spoke of Chinese parents being the ultimate authority in family life, and yet we see here a brutal regime taking away women's right to produce a second child. Unless he endorses forced abortion which of course would make him no better than the criminal who injected the mother with the poisonous dose.

Wed, 2012-06-27 01:12 — Spondulicks (not verified)

Women's right to produce a second child? No-one has that right in China. It's a matter of national survival, not a lifestyle choice.

Fri, 2012-07-13 22:23 — ClaireL (not verified)

China is forever trying to increase its borders. It didn't have to take over Tibet, it doesn't have to be so big. Give Tibet back to its indigenous people, Mongolia and all the other outlying provinces it has sequestered.

Fri, 2012-07-13 22:23 — ClaireL (not verified)