Do Feminists Care About Reproductive Rights in China?
NOW, Feminist Majority Foundation and the National Congress of Black Women have joined together in “Enraged and Engaged: Women’s Campaign Against Alito,” primarily because they fear a conservative Supreme Court could overturn Roe v. Wade. Eleanor Smeal, president of Feminist Majority Foundation, described Alito as “a man who would turn the clock back on women’s rights and civil rights.” Kim Gandy, president of NOW, said of the Alito nomination, “Women’s rights and, indeed our very lives, are at stake.”
NOW’s and Feminist Majority Foundation’s concerns for women’s rights are limited in scope. The Feminist Majority Foundation’s website does feature a “Campaign for Afghan women and girls” that lists general goals, yet does not mention “honor” killings. Headlines on the site’s main page did include the January 3, 2006 beheading of Malim Abdul Habib, the headmaster of a co-educational school. The NOW site headlines did not include that story, the December 28, 2005 AP article about the “honor” killings of a Pakistani woman and three young girls, nor the January 6, 2006 Reuters article about a man who has been under house arrest in China since September for exposing forced abortions and sterilizations in Shandong province. In fact neither site had any noticeable references to China.
If feminists are concerned about women’s civil rights and reproductive freedom, why do they ignore forced abortions in China? Is it because they do not believe the Chinese government can be influenced? That didn’t stop Amnesty International. That group brought attention to the case of Ma Weihua, a pregnant drug courier who had been sentenced to death for possession of 1.6kg of heroin. China’s law prohibits executions of pregnant women, so Ma was forced to undergo an abortion on February 19, 2003. An Amnesty International appeal that people write to the President of Gansu High People’s Court may have had an impact: Ma’s sentence was changed to life imprisonment.
In China, forced abortions are not only performed on prisoners, but also on ordinary citizens as part of the one-child policy. According to the February 15, 2001 CNSNews.com article, “China Uses Abortion as Female Genocide,” farmer Huang Quisheng’s family already had children. In August 2000, family planning officials forced his wife, who was eight months pregnant, to undergo a saline abortion. When abortion failed to kill the baby, officials drowned the newborn in the presence of the Huangs.
In her December 22, 2004 article, “Congress Holds Hearing on Forced Abortion Victim,” Wendy Wright reported that Mao Hengfeng was sentenced to 18 months at a re-education through labor camp in April 2004 for repeatedly petitioning authorities about an abortion she was forced to undergo in 1987.
In China, families are only allowed to have more than one child if they pay Social Compensation Fees which can be as much as ten times their annual income. In 2001, China banned the use of the abortion pill, mifepristone, also known as RU-486. In an effort to stop sex-selective abortions, China recently enacted a law that levies fines and prison terms to healthcare providers for revealing an unborn baby’s sex to the parents. According to a 1999 Planned Parenthood Federation report, between 500,000 and 750,000 unborn girls were voluntarily aborted in China annually under the one-child policy. Shouldn’t feminists be concerned that the new law to prevent sex-selective abortions is enforced?
Despite these reforms, forced abortions and sterilizations still occur. Benjamin Kang Lim’s January 6, 2006 Reuters article, “Blind China activist under house arrest since Sept,” reports that Chen Guangcheng and his family have been under house arrest since September 6, 2005 when officials accused Cheng of “providing ‘intelligence’ to foreigners about forced abortions and sterilizations as part of strict family planning rules.” Officials cut Chen’s phone lines, refused him medical treatment and prevented him and his family from leaving their residence. China’s state media reported that Chen’s information led to the dismissal and detention of several officials of Linyi city in the Shandong province, but Chen stated that he has not heard that those officials were punished.
Where is the outrage from feminists about forced abortions and sterilizations? Shouldn’t reproductive freedom include freedom NOT to have an abortion? Shouldn’t “the right to choose” include allowing the men and women of China to choose life for their “unauthorized” babies?
Rather than being outraged by forced abortions, some feminists used data to demonstrate the safety of the abortion pill! In her 2000 paper, “Medical Abortion in China,” written for the American Women’s Medical Association, Wu Shangchun wrote of RU-486, “The current protocol of medical abortion for termination of early pregnancy in China is reasonable and feasible.” Apparently, the American Women’s Medical Association wasn’t concerned about the reproductive freedom of China’s citizens, but about making a cheaper method of abortion easily available in the U.S.
While feminists are “Enraged and Engaged” about the remote possibility that Roe v. Wade could be overturned, they are disconnected from the issues of civil rights and reproductive rights in China. They care about freedom to kill the unborn, not freedom to have children.
Copyright Eva Ellsworth, 01/08/06, all rights reserved
NOW’s and Feminist Majority Foundation’s concerns for women’s rights are limited in scope. The Feminist Majority Foundation’s website does feature a “Campaign for Afghan women and girls” that lists general goals, yet does not mention “honor” killings. Headlines on the site’s main page did include the January 3, 2006 beheading of Malim Abdul Habib, the headmaster of a co-educational school. The NOW site headlines did not include that story, the December 28, 2005 AP article about the “honor” killings of a Pakistani woman and three young girls, nor the January 6, 2006 Reuters article about a man who has been under house arrest in China since September for exposing forced abortions and sterilizations in Shandong province. In fact neither site had any noticeable references to China.
If feminists are concerned about women’s civil rights and reproductive freedom, why do they ignore forced abortions in China? Is it because they do not believe the Chinese government can be influenced? That didn’t stop Amnesty International. That group brought attention to the case of Ma Weihua, a pregnant drug courier who had been sentenced to death for possession of 1.6kg of heroin. China’s law prohibits executions of pregnant women, so Ma was forced to undergo an abortion on February 19, 2003. An Amnesty International appeal that people write to the President of Gansu High People’s Court may have had an impact: Ma’s sentence was changed to life imprisonment.
In China, forced abortions are not only performed on prisoners, but also on ordinary citizens as part of the one-child policy. According to the February 15, 2001 CNSNews.com article, “China Uses Abortion as Female Genocide,” farmer Huang Quisheng’s family already had children. In August 2000, family planning officials forced his wife, who was eight months pregnant, to undergo a saline abortion. When abortion failed to kill the baby, officials drowned the newborn in the presence of the Huangs.
In her December 22, 2004 article, “Congress Holds Hearing on Forced Abortion Victim,” Wendy Wright reported that Mao Hengfeng was sentenced to 18 months at a re-education through labor camp in April 2004 for repeatedly petitioning authorities about an abortion she was forced to undergo in 1987.
In China, families are only allowed to have more than one child if they pay Social Compensation Fees which can be as much as ten times their annual income. In 2001, China banned the use of the abortion pill, mifepristone, also known as RU-486. In an effort to stop sex-selective abortions, China recently enacted a law that levies fines and prison terms to healthcare providers for revealing an unborn baby’s sex to the parents. According to a 1999 Planned Parenthood Federation report, between 500,000 and 750,000 unborn girls were voluntarily aborted in China annually under the one-child policy. Shouldn’t feminists be concerned that the new law to prevent sex-selective abortions is enforced?
Despite these reforms, forced abortions and sterilizations still occur. Benjamin Kang Lim’s January 6, 2006 Reuters article, “Blind China activist under house arrest since Sept,” reports that Chen Guangcheng and his family have been under house arrest since September 6, 2005 when officials accused Cheng of “providing ‘intelligence’ to foreigners about forced abortions and sterilizations as part of strict family planning rules.” Officials cut Chen’s phone lines, refused him medical treatment and prevented him and his family from leaving their residence. China’s state media reported that Chen’s information led to the dismissal and detention of several officials of Linyi city in the Shandong province, but Chen stated that he has not heard that those officials were punished.
Where is the outrage from feminists about forced abortions and sterilizations? Shouldn’t reproductive freedom include freedom NOT to have an abortion? Shouldn’t “the right to choose” include allowing the men and women of China to choose life for their “unauthorized” babies?
Rather than being outraged by forced abortions, some feminists used data to demonstrate the safety of the abortion pill! In her 2000 paper, “Medical Abortion in China,” written for the American Women’s Medical Association, Wu Shangchun wrote of RU-486, “The current protocol of medical abortion for termination of early pregnancy in China is reasonable and feasible.” Apparently, the American Women’s Medical Association wasn’t concerned about the reproductive freedom of China’s citizens, but about making a cheaper method of abortion easily available in the U.S.
While feminists are “Enraged and Engaged” about the remote possibility that Roe v. Wade could be overturned, they are disconnected from the issues of civil rights and reproductive rights in China. They care about freedom to kill the unborn, not freedom to have children.
Copyright Eva Ellsworth, 01/08/06, all rights reserved
3 Comments:
The answer to your question is not only "no" but worse. Essentially, forced abortion is practiced in the U.S. by means of the no-parental-notification laws ["privacy" right] still in practice, which result in forcing some minors to have abortions.
One of my daughters very recently worked for a year in a County Public Health clinic as an R.N.. She could only reccommend that a pregnant minor get advice, but not necessarily from her parents. Then she could only provide a list of institutional "advice givers". Obviously some of these entities only promote/advise abortion as "best", but no one - neither my daughter nor the minor - knew which ones these were, leaving the advice to be received at random, depending on which one the minor selected. Thus the minor could easily receive the advice "you really have to get an abortion", thus really having no effective choice.
[Moreover, how could the minor possibly make any reasoned choice or the "advice giver" give any reasoned advice without the parents having input? And the minor can easily be still a child, for God's sake.]
But it all makes perfect sense to pro-abortion fanatics, who see any abortion as good in-itself because it is a "right", even if not a choice.
Obviously, this situation actually makes no sense. It was this kind of nonsensical, obsessive-compulsive extremism which converted me from being "pro-choice", even in the face of having a partner-friend of 26 years who at one time himself possibly did the most abortions/man-hour in the world.
I could go on.
You are somewhat behind in your observations on China. Forced abortions are no longer the issue they were in China. Now they are experiencing many of the issues that the west is facing vis-a-vis spot shortages/overages of differing populations. In their major cities, many women once they get educated chose to have no children. This is very similar to what goes on in the west.
The real issue in China now is the inbalance that exists in the male vs. female population. Through the use of sonargrams to determine the sex of children and then aborting females or exposing them at birth, China now has an massive inbalance of men to women...
China has an estimated overage of 29 to 33 million men versus women.
Valerie Hudson has written a very good book on this issue "Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population".
http://byunews.byu.edu/archive04-Jul-barebranches.aspx
She covers the security implications for us as a nuclear power tries to deal with the expected instability relating to 29 to 33 million young men not having women or marriage to keep them stabilized. Higher crime rates, localized rebellions, maybe civil wars, etc., This is an issue throughout Asia btw, as India, Pakistan and many of the other countries throughout Asia have put themselves in the same situation.
Feminists obviuosly ignore this as they don't like to face the implications of the need for marriage as a stabilizing force on men in every society. I suspect MRAs ignore it for the same reason.
So to fixiate on abortion (forced or otherwise) when a castastrophe of a far greater magnitude could be on the horizon seems shortsighted to say the least.
This is the sort of thinking that goes on however when people try to ignore the essential nature of humanity.
Here's a link to a post I put up about a year or so ago regarding how immigration from other countries can undermine women rights in democracies.
http://womenasmothers.blogspot.com/2005/03/human-rights-crimes-committed-against.html
Post a Comment
<< Home