Abortion Used Against Women

Under a "one-child policy," introduced in 1979 to help slow down the galloping population growth rate, parents are routinely sterilized and face large fines if they have more than one child.

The government claims it has successfully prevented 250 million births since it was introduced.

But it has also been estimated that the policy has resulted in there being 60 million more males in China than females. Many parents, aware they will only have one child to look after them in their old age, want that child to be a son, say human rights campaigners.

As a result, parents who can afford it have their child screened in the womb, then abort girls. Those who give birth to girls may abandon them or leave them to die.

Determination of gender during ultrasound scans has been officially banned for years, but the practice continues. One 1999 report on the International Planned Parenthood Federation Web site says that between 500,000 and 750,000 unborn Chinese girls are aborted every year after sex screening.

Last August, Western newspapers reported a case in which "family planning" officials had killed an unauthorized baby in front of its parents.

The Huang family already had three children when the mother fell pregnant again, according to the reports. Having botched an attempt to induce an abortion, "family planning" officials then ordered the father to kill the newborn baby, whom he instead tried to hide. Eventually they found the baby boy and drowned him in a rice paddy, in front of the parents.

"China's population-control policies allow petty bureaucrats across the country a free hand to ruin people's lives as they extort bribes and gifts and dispense life-or-death decisions," one London newspaper reported at the time.

After a public outcry, authorities reportedly arrested three "family planning" officials.

According to information provided by the Chinese Embassy in Britain, the government views the policy as benefiting the whole of society. It claims that "forced abortion and sterilization are strictly prohibited by the Chinese laws and offenders will be punished according to law."

A Taiwan newspaper in December quoted the director of China's state "family planning" commission as admitting that the policy has led to forced abortions, sex-selective abortions, as well as infanticide and the abandonment of newborn girls.

But China would go on implementing the policy, he said, while continuing to oppose "coercion" and "induced abortion."

The policy has been relaxed in some areas, and some parents are allowed to have a second child, in return for paying a fee, often more than a year's wages

if China has no "family plan" policy,I just interest in who can give the new baby job after they be adult.this year,142 million university graduates can't find job,they were born in 1980s,China's "family plan" policy started at 1979,if China has no this policy,more graduates would has no job

some officials are bad,but no one kill baby in front of his parent.actually in China,if one couple live in countryside,they can have the second baby if their first baby is daughter.in city,one couple just can have one baby,but if that baby is not healthy(congenital diseases),they can have the second baby.

that article from UK site is full of lies...