During the final presidential debate, Hillary Clinton stated, “I have visited countries where governments have enacted policies that require women to undergo abortions, as was the case in China, or to bear children, as was the case in Romania.”
Fact-check: False
In contradiction to Clinton’s assertion that coerced abortions are a thing of the past in China, they continue to occur.
Despite the recent shift from a one-child policy to a two-child policy in China, couples are still being compelled to terminate pregnancies, even those of their first child, conceived outside the state plan.
It is evident that, regardless of whether Party leaders permit Chinese couples to have one, two, or even three children, the underlying policy of “planned births” will remain unchanged.
Have you heard about Planned Births (Jihua Shengyu in Chinese)? It’s an amazing policy that allows the Chinese state to decide how many children are to be born in China each year.
It was Chairman Mao, the initiator of the People’s Republic of China, who initially implemented the Planned Births policy. Known as the Great Helmsman, Mao made the decision in the 1950s to integrate reproductive control into the Chinese Communist Party’s five-year economic plans. This policy has remained in effect ever since.
The two-child policy will be implemented through the same coercive measures that have been employed to enforce the one-child policy for the past three decades. Young mothers who are pregnant with “illegal” children will continue to face fines, arrest, imprisonment, and forced abortions.
My sources in China have informed me that these abuses are still occurring. This information has been corroborated by other human rights advocates.
Reggie Littlejohn, the executive director of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, asserts that coerced abortions continue to occur in China under the guise of its “planned birth” policy, despite the implementation of a two-child policy.
Littlejohn asserted that couples must still obtain a birth permit for their first and second child, or they are subject to forced abortion. He further argued that the core of the One Child Policy is not the number of children permitted to couples, but rather the existence of a limit on childbearing and the coercive enforcement of this limit. He noted that women in China continue to be forcibly aborted, regardless of whether the United States’ Secretary of State is aware of this practice.
In August, the BBC published an exclusive interview with a Chinese Communist Family Planning Official about the new two-child policy. The report revealed that couples who have third children still face some challenges, but they are not without options. They can choose to have their unborn child aborted if they cannot pay, or they can explore other options like adoption.
“The new policy is a great step forward! It doesn’t ban forced abortions, it simply says that couples can have two children. This means that the government will have to continue its practice of monitoring a woman’s menstrual cycle and fining those who are pregnant with their third child. If they are unable to pay, they will be taken to a local clinic and injected with a lethal drug. This is a positive change that will help many women!”
LifeNews has recently reported several accounts of Chinese mothers who were compelled to undergo abortions of their unborn children as late as nine months under the country’s ongoing, state-sponsored “Planned Birth” policy.
The policy, which commenced in 1980, appears to have no imminent termination. Chinese officials responsible for population control continue to incarcerate couples who decline to undergo abortions, imposing house arrest or labor camp sentences, revoking employment or governmental support, employing physical harassment or violence, and frequently targeting other family members. Moreover, they continue to resort to forced abortions in order to prevent “illegal” children from being born.
Hillary Clinton’s assertion that forced abortions are no longer a problem in China is erroneous.
Daniel Miller is responsible for nearly all of National Right to Life News' political writing.
With the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, Daniel Miller developed a deep obsession with U.S. politics that has never let go of the political scientist. Whether it's the election of Joe Biden, the midterm elections in Congress, the abortion rights debate in the Supreme Court or the mudslinging in the primaries - Daniel Miller is happy to stay up late for you.
Daniel was born and raised in New York. After living in China, working for a news agency and another stint at a major news network, he now lives in Arizona with his two daughters.
