An AP report describes the heartbreaking aftermath of the forced abortion of Gong Qifeng. Seven months pregnant with her second son, she was pinned down to a table by several people and forcibly aborted, as she begged for mercy.
Gong stated, “It [the forced abortion] has become a mental pain. I feel like a walking corpse.” Her subsequent diagnosis of schizophrenia graphically demonstrates the untold mental and emotional violence that forced abortion unleashes against the women of China.
Gong’s experience is reminiscent of the searing Congressional testimony of Wujian, who suffered a late-term forced abortion in which her baby was dismembered and removed from her piece by piece while she was fully awake.
Not only mental breakdowns but also female suicides are among the heartbreaking consequences of the coercive enforcement of the One Child Policy. According to the 2012 Department of State Human Rights Report on China, the number of women committing suicide has risen to 590 from 500 a day in 2009. Two of the factors cited include “the traditional preference for male children, [and] birth limitation policies.”
Chinese demographer Liang Zhongtang was courageous in making this pronouncement regarding the adjustment that couples in which one parent is an only child can have a second child: “The system has not changed at all. It still forbids you from having more children than permitted by the government, so the game – and forced later-term abortions – are unavoidable if you want to have children the government does not allow.” This statement cuts against all the recent media coverage that China is “easing” its One Child Policy. It is not.
Reggie Littlejohn, president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, stated, “This minor adjustment will not affect many families in China. Even those families who can now have a second child will need government permission to get pregnant. If they get pregnant without a permit, they may still be subject to forced abortion. I fully expect that we will continue to see forced abortions and sterilizations of Chinese women in 2014 and beyond. This violence must stop. We will continue our efforts until all coercive family planning in China has ended.”
Are Gong Qifeng and her husband likely to get any help from officials back in their hometown? Typically, women who are forcibly aborted because of an illegal pregnancy are not compensated. Their act of getting pregnant without a permit is considered a crime. Because of international pressure, however, this couple may get some help from local officials. The family of forced abortion victim Feng Jianmei was compensated, however inadequately, because of international pressure. The Chinese Communist Party boasts that it has prevented 400 million lives through the One Child Policy. We will never know how many of these were late term forced abortions, where the women were not compensated in any way.
LifeNews.com Note: Reggie Littlejohn is the Founder and President of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers. She serves as an expert on China’s One-Child Policy for Human Rights Without Frontiers, in Belgium, as well as the China Aid Association.
