Reggie Littlejohn, President of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, offered a nuanced perspective on the impact of the One Child Policy, noting that it has resulted in a significant number of forced abortions and sterilizations, as well as a multitude of human experiences that have been profoundly affected.
While presenting itself as an advocate for choice, International Planned Parenthood has been collaborating with the population control program in China since its inception. Forced abortion is not a choice. Women’s Rights Without Frontiers calls for a comprehensive, international investigation of International Planned Parenthood to ascertain the precise nature of its operations in China.
Transparency is demanded by the fact that IPPF receives taxpayer dollars from the United States and other nations. It is my contention that it is impossible to work so closely with the Chinese Communist Party’s forced abortion machine without being complicit in its atrocities. This is particularly the case when this year we learned that the number of abortions in China is not 13 million, but a staggering 23 million a year.
In China, abortion is not primarily a matter of personal choice. In 2012, the image of Feng Jianmei lying next to her aborted fetus, released by Women’s Rights Without Frontiers and subsequently disseminated by Western media, shocked the world and revealed the true face of Chinese population control.
Forced abortion persists under China’s new Two Child Policy. On July 22, 2016, for example, a Guangdong couple was informed that they were required to undergo an abortion or face the loss of their government jobs. The wife was eight months pregnant. Meanwhile, International Planned Parenthood has been collaborating with the government’s coercive One (now Two) Child Policy for an extended period.
The establishment of the China Family Planning Association (CFPA) in 1980 was accompanied by an official communiqué that stated its purpose was to “implement government population control policies.” In 1983, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) began partnering with the CFPA as its primary access point to China, at a time when the then-new One-Child Policy was being implemented and abuses were at their height.
In its inaugural decade, the CFPA, in collaboration with the IPPF, established one million branches throughout China and mobilized as many as 94 million members and volunteers across the country. Indeed, China became the second country to be officially recognized as a qualified member of the IPPF, following the CFPA’s fulfillment of the 65 criteria set forth by the IPPF on sexual and reproductive health issues.
Furthermore, this collaboration with International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) is not a thing of the past.
Currently, IPPF remains the primary partner of the China Family Planning Association (CFPA), with IPPF openly endorsing China’s widely criticized coercive policies.
- In 2009, IPPF’s director-general Gill Greer praised China’s One-Child Policy, stating it was “very conducive to China’s development in various aspects,” including healthcare services.
- In a 2011 letter to the editor, former Planned Parenthood Executive Vice President Norman Fleishman described China’s One Child Policy as a “start” to addressing global population issues. During this period, IPPF’s website affirmed its support for China’s family planning policy, highlighting the significant role played by its Chinese counterpart in implementing the program.
In turn, the Chinese family planning office has expressed the importance of international cooperation and has “offered to provide population management training and contraceptive supplies to developing countries,” thus attempting to spread its abusive system.
The Planned Parenthood Action Fund expressed disapproval after Feng Jianmei’s photograph rocked the global community and created an international outcry. However, International Planned Parenthood (IPPF) remained silent, and IPPF’s material relationship with China has not changed.
Indeed, the IPPF website still lists CFPA as its primary operational hub in China and has recently publicized its amicable relationship with the Chinese government. In 2013, following a change in China’s leadership, the IPPF described its meeting with the newly appointed Chinese premier, Li Kequiang, and their mutual plans to “strengthen the partnership” between China and the IPPF.
If International Planned Parenthood is indeed a champion of reproductive choice, it is difficult to comprehend why they are collaborating with the Chinese Communist Party’s coercive population control apparatus. Moreover, the most recent State Department Report indicates that the number of abortions in a year has increased from 13 to 23 million. In the past, the Chinese government reported 13 million abortions annually.
The 2015 State Department Report indicated that, according to official Chinese sources, the number of abortions performed is believed to be higher than previously reported. This is because the statistics in the past were collected only from registered medical institutions and did not include abortions at unregistered clinics. The State Department Report also states that an “official [Chinese] news media outlet” has reported that at least an additional 10 million chemically induced abortions were performed in nongovernmental facilities.
The addition of abortions performed at official and unofficial facilities results in an estimated 23 million abortions per year, or 63,013 abortions per day, 2,625 abortions per hour, or 43 abortions per minute. The United States population is approximately 320 million, with approximately 1 million abortions per year. The population of China is almost 1.4 billion, with approximately 23 million abortions per year. Consequently, China, with a population four times that of the United States, has 23 times the number of abortions. According to the State Department Report, the Chinese government did not provide a statistic on the number of these abortions that were forced.
Littlejohn notes that Americans and the international community have a stake in this problem because our tax money helps fund it. A March 2015 report from the United States Government Accountability Office indicates that International Planned Parenthood has received U.S. taxpayer dollars. Its own financial report reveals that International Planned Parenthood receives funds from other governments, the United Nations Family Planning Fund (UNFPA), and private foundations as well.
Littlejohn further asserted that the United States and other Western governments are financing IPPF through taxpayer money without requiring transparency or accountability regarding IPPF’s operations in China. He argued that this lack of accountability results in the blood of Chinese women and babies being on their hands. On this somber 36th anniversary of the One Child Policy, Littlejohn and his colleagues called upon the Chinese government to cease all coercive population control. Furthermore, we urge the United States and other governmental bodies to cease using taxpayer money to collaborate with coercive population control in China through IPPF’s long-standing partnership with the China Family Planning Association. Instead, they should launch a comprehensive investigation of IPPF’s operations in China.
Littlejohn concluded:
“One out of every five women in the world lives in China. The women of the world will not be free until the women of China are free.”
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.
