Chinese forced abortions and sterilizations

[dotcoma]

Time Magazine

The men with the poison-filled syringe arrived two days before Li Juan's due date. They pinned her down on a bed in a local clinic, she says, and drove the needle into her abdomen until it entered the 9-month-old fetus. "At first, I could feel my child kicking a lot," says the 23-year-old. "Then, after a while, I couldn't feel her moving anymore." Ten hours later, Li delivered the girl she had intended to name Shuang (Bright). The baby was dead. To be absolutely sure, says Li, the officials--from the Linyi region, where she lives, in China's eastern Shandong province--dunked the infant's body for several minutes in a bucket of water beside the bed. All she could think about on that day last spring, recalls Li, was how she would hire a gang of thugs to take revenge on the people who killed her baby because the birth, they said, would have violated China's family-planning scheme. Since 1980, when China began fully carrying out what is commonly known as the one-child policy, officials in the provinces have often resorted to draconian measures--forced sterilizations and late-term abortions among them--to prevent the country's population of 1.3 billion from expanding into a Malthusian nightmare. Government leaders credit China's stringent population control with helping spur economic growth by reducing the number of mouths that must be fed. But in 2002, as personal freedoms proliferated in other areas of life, parliament voted to ease the deeply unpopular policy. Instead of forbidding extra children outright, the new law, among other reforms, allowed couples to have multiple offspring if they were willing to pay big fines. The costs can be exorbitant for peasants like Li--$365 or more for the first additional child in Linyi, around four times the average annual net income in this impoverished region. But at least the Chinese now possess a modicum of choice in family matters, which they lacked a few years ago.

:eek:

[SteveA]

When society takes the responsibility of providing for and raising your child, guess who's the one who says whether or not they have the resources to do so? Freedom and responsibility go hand in hand.

[SoccerfreakAB2]

It would be different if China actually let people leave the country. That way, people wouldn't be so crowded and these things could be avoided.

[tinybear]

Quote by: SteveA When society takes the responsibility of providing for and raising your child, guess who's the one who says whether or not they have the resources to do so? Freedom and responsibility go hand in hand.

So you think this sorta thing is OK? :rolleyes:

By parity of reasoning, if this happened to an American family dependent on social security, you'd think the state will have a right to do this, do you?

[Mia]

If an American woman is on welfare, yes, she should be forced not to have more children that she can't care for.

And Deadbeat Dad's should be sterilized as well.

[tinybear]

Quote by: Mia If an American woman is on welfare, yes, she should be forced not to have more children that she can't care for. And Deadbeat Dad's should be sterilized as well.

Come to think of it, Mia, you're right. Let's round up those blacks and hispanics (who form the majority of those on social welfare) and forcibly sterilise them, hence solving our social problems all in one go, shall we?

[Mia]

No, they are not the majority - whites are.

[Mia]

And the issue is about personal responsibility - some people have none, and one mistake we can help them out - but repeating the same one over and over and expecting me to pay for it? I'm out on that program.

[tinybear]

Nurse, I'm just curious. Why do you prefer them Chinks to whites, blacks & the brown ones?

[tinybear]

You reckon? Sure you haven't watched too many Suzie Wong movies?

[tinybear]

Quote by: Mia No, they are not the majority - whites are.

Really?

"Across all racial and ethnic groups, 15 percent of the nonelderly are poor. Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans, however, each have poverty rates almost twice as high as Asians and almost three times as high as whites. Among low-income persons, inequalities across racial and ethnic groups persist. While 26 percent of whites and 29 percent of Asians are low-income, the rate is 49 percent for blacks, 54 percent for Native Americans, and 61 percent for Hispanics."

http://www.urban.org/Template.cfm?Na...icationID=6455

[SteveA]

Quote by: tinybear So you think this sorta thing is OK? :rolleyes: By parity of reasoning, if this happened to an American family dependent on social security, you'd think the state will have a right to do this, do you?

I didn't say I thought it was ok.

I was just stating what the consequences are when people hand responsibility of taking care of themselves or their children to government - they also hand over their freedom and possibly their lives.

[Sean]

Nurse and others, keep the racial labels to a minimum please...this is for intelligent debate.

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS WARNING IN THIS POST (USE PRIVATE MESSAGING OR THE SITE OPERATIONS FORUM)

[SoccerfreakAB2]

Quote by: Mia If an American woman is on welfare, yes, she should be forced not to have more children that she can't care for. And Deadbeat Dad's should be sterilized as well.

Hmm...Some of this makes sense, most does not. If you are born into a poor family, being a woman, then keep the same life your parents raised you with, on welfare for this case, then are you saying that this woman cannot have children just because she has come from a poor family and cannot support one? Doesn't seem like equality here. Rich women can have children. Economically, great, you've helped the system. Morally, ethically, reasonably, and philosophically, you've just ruined equality between social classes.

[austin2011]

Quote by: Mia If an American woman is on welfare, yes, she should be forced not to have more children that she can't care for. And Deadbeat Dad's should be sterilized as well.

90% of the "deadbeat dads" are not "deadbeat".. they are dead "broke." The child support system is insanely unrealistic and completely out of touch with the current economy. Not to mention fathers have absolutely no say so in the birth of their children- women trick and decieve men everyday by telling them they are on birth control and then just "whoops, I guess I forgot my pill that day." But not to worry guys, the male birth contol pill is coming out soon- it's ready for the market. This will take away all the power women have over child birth once and for all! Yaaa!

[PatrickHenry]

Quote by: austin2011 the male birth contol pill is coming out soon

Source?

[Mia]

Quote by: tinybear Really? "Across all racial and ethnic groups, 15 percent of the nonelderly are poor. Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans, however, each have poverty rates almost twice as high as Asians and almost three times as high as whites. Among low-income persons, inequalities across racial and ethnic groups persist. While 26 percent of whites and 29 percent of Asians are low-income, the rate is 49 percent for blacks, 54 percent for Native Americans, and 61 percent for Hispanics." http://www.urban.org/Template.cfm?Na...icationID=6455

What you posted shows the percentage within each group, but since whites outnumber blacks, 26% of whites = more people overall than 49% of blacks.

Plus, your stats are about low-income pops, not welfare recipients, which was the subject.

[Mia]

Quote by: SoccerfreakAB2 Hmm...Some of this makes sense, most does not. If you are born into a poor family, being a woman, then keep the same life your parents raised you with, on welfare for this case, then are you saying that this woman cannot have children just because she has come from a poor family and cannot support one? Doesn't seem like equality here. Rich women can have children. Economically, great, you've helped the system. Morally, ethically, reasonably, and philosophically, you've just ruined equality between social classes.

Do you consider it morally, ethically, reasonably, and philosophically correct to have children you can't afford to feed, clothe, shelter, educate, and provide health care for?

We all have to work for what we want. I won't have kids until I'm equipped financially and otherwise, rich or poor.

[SteveA]

Quote by: Mia If an American woman is on welfare, yes, she should be forced not to have more children that she can't care for. And Deadbeat Dad's should be sterilized as well.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Why do most states require people to wear seatbelts? Because the states implicitly assumed responsibility for your well being. If they take the responsibility for your actions, they take your freedom to decide these things for yourself. Smoking is very similar. We have laws against smoking, not usually because someones smoking is truly harming anyone else but because other laws require we pay to fund medical resource or provide someone medical care etc.

I see a lot of these types of laws, where we remove someones freedom because we already assumed responsibility for their actions.

Instead of killing children, we should just place the responsibility of providing for a child with the parent (with of course people freely allowed to provide assistance if they wanted, but not required to by law through social programs). Then we don't need to set quotas on children or have government change course from permitting abortions to requiring them.

This is the way to both allow people the freedom to have children or not and simultaneously protect others from being harmed by poor choices someone else makes. You might feel obligated to assist someone in need but it's unfair to claim their mistake truly harmed you by "making" you help them. Noone forces you, by definition, to do something charitable except government (which doesn't do charity).

[SoccerfreakAB2]

Quote by: Mia Do you consider it morally, ethically, reasonably, and philosophically correct to have children you can't afford to feed, clothe, shelter, educate, and provide health care for?

Moral-yes
Ethical-yes
reasonable-not really
philosophically-yes

It's a matter of weighing the issue

Quote by: Mia We all have to work for what we want. I won't have kids until I'm equipped financially and otherwise, rich or poor.

Good motto. Other's don't care. Especially since you were never in the position of being so poor you cannot have kids. I couldn't imagine that. Neither could you, you just choose to ignore it, selfishly.