The Associated Press is facing criticism from a pro-life Catholic writer who is upset that it published a recent article praising the one-child policy in China that has resulted in forced abortions and sterilizations.
Titled, “One-child policy a surprising boon for China girls,” the AP story says the policy resulting in so many human rights abuses is to be credited for helping women achieve success in education.
“Such gifted young women are increasingly common in China’s cities and make up the most educated generation of women in Chinese history. Never have so many been in college or graduate school, and never has their ratio to male students been more balanced,” AP claims.
“Wang and many of her female classmates grew up with tutors and allowances, after-school classes and laptop computers. Though she is just one generation off the farm, she carries an iPad and a debit card, and shops for the latest fashions online,” AP boats. “Wang and many of her female classmates grew up with tutors and allowances, after-school classes and laptop computers. Though she is just one generation off the farm, she carries an iPad and a debit card, and shops for the latest fashions online
It’s not until the 14th paragraph of the story that AP finally bring sup the massive problems under the policy, which has resulted in sex-selection abortions, subjecting couples to fines, women to prison camps, denial of government benefits, and subjecting those like Chen Guangcheng to prison and home detention for dare speaking out against it.
“Crediting the one-child policy with improving the lives of women is jarring, given its history and how it’s harmed women in other ways. Facing pressure to stay under population quotas, overzealous family planning officials have resorted to forced sterilizations and late-term abortions, sometimes within weeks of delivery, although such practices are illegal,” AP says.
The article is so positive that a UNICEF official is quoted praising the one-child policy: “Yin Yin Nwe, UNICEF’s representative to China, puts it bluntly: The one-child policy brings many benefits for girls “but they have to be born first.”
And therein lies the rub for writer Philip Lawler.
“The most obvious outcome of the China’s one-child policy, coupled with the deeply-ingrained desire for male children, has been the routine destruction of Chinese girls in the womb. The UN estimates that 43 million girls are “missing” in China today, due primarily to sex-selection abortions,” he writes. “But for those who aren’t killed, the policy is a “boon,” AP tells us. The story explains that there are more girls studying in the finest schools, more girls owning laptops, more girls receiving lavish gifts from their families. Life is good—for those girls who survive long enough to experience it.”
“So if you don’t count the women who are slaughtered in the womb, and the women who are subjected to involuntary sterilization, and the women who have their unborn children torn from their wombs by the government-backed butchers who drive around the country in vans equipped as slap-dash abortion clinics, and the women who live in fear, trying to dodge the family-planning officials who will punish them for pregnancy, and those who live with regrets, having sacrificed their children—if you exclude all those women—well then the one-child policy is a “boon” to the others,” Lawler concludes. “Thanks, AP. Always nice to see a “good news” story.”
