A 7-months pregnant woman's head is covered so local officials can abduct her from her home and take her to have a forced abortion because she violated China's tough one-child policy. Sounds like the scene from a horror movie, right? Unfortunately, it's not. It's real life. That's what Deng Jiyuan says happened to his 23-year-old wife, Feng Jianmei, at the beginning of June.
Now Deng's lawyer says the father wants the officials responsible for the forced abortion to face criminal prosecution and wants compensation for the atrocity committed against his wife. Meanwhile Feng has had such a difficult time dealing with what was done to her that she slit her wrists in an attempted suicide and is currently in the hospital.
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All this because China has a strict rule that prohibits couples from having more than one child–unless they live in the countryside and their firstborn was a girl–in an effort to curtail overpopulation. Deng and Feng already have a 6-year-old girl and when family-planning authorities found out she was pregnant again, they demanded more than $6,000 in fines–a ridiculous amount consider that's more than what Deng makes in four years!
Since they didn't pay the fine, Feng was abducted and given an injection to induce labor. Her 7-month-old baby was stillborn. Family members then uploaded a photo of the dead baby to the Internet and eventually the whole world found out. Since forced abortions (and sterilizations) are illegal in China, the government has fired the local official and has punished others involved in Feng's case, but none of that is enough to erase the damage done to this young couple.
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The only real solution to this kind of despicable practice is for China to get rid of it's outdated one-child policy–especially considering that it's creating a demographic disaster. The policy, instituted back in 1979 by the Communist Party, is going to leave China with a disproportinately large number of elderly and far fewer workers to move its economy forward.
Do you agree that the time has come to drop this one-child policy? Share your thoughts with us by leaving us a comment below.
Image via dzh.mop.com
