Post-Abortive Women File Complaint Against China’s One Child Policy

By Wendy Wright | August 2, 2012


In the last several years, women who regret their abortions have been active at the UN telling delegates and bureaucrats how abortion hurt them. Now they are spearheading a coalition that submitted a formal complaint to the UN Commission on the Status of Women against China over its One Child Policy.

They hope this “complaint will be the catalyst that will convict the Chinese government to abort their population control campaign by dropping the one child policy. Billions of Chinese women are suffering post traumatic stress disorder, millions are depressed and suicidal. Every 4 minutes a woman in China is killing herself.”

The Coalition to End Violence Against Pregnant Women consists of All Girls Allowed, Women for Life International, Canada Silent No More, Endeavor Forum, Jubilee Campaign.

Their complaint states:

1. The following non-governmental organizations wish to make a formal complaint against The People’s Republic of China, including without limitation its National Population and Family Planning Commission, for violating Women’s Human Rights, Freedom, and Liberty, and women’s right to choose to bring a child to birth.

2. There are numerous reports of pregnant women being tortured and forced into ‘family planning clinics’ to have their children forcibly killed by means of dismemberment, decapitation, poisoning or vacuuming the child out of their womb unwillingly.

3. China is known to have a rigid propaganda campaign including stiff financial penalties and other material consequences as punishment for giving birth to a child without a birth permit. These cruel practices, policies, and patterns are degrading and inhumane to women and children and families, cause great harm and injustice, and constitute crimes against humanity

4. It is also widely reported that women are forcibly removed from their homes and forced/coerced into having abortions and government forced sterilizations. All of these violations occurred in, and are occurring today in the People’s Republic of China.

5. We condemn China’s One Child Policy that has led to forced abortions, forced sterilizations and confiscatory fines and penalties for violation of this policy as a violation of human rights and discrimination against women, and demand women have the freedom of reproductive choice to let their children live, without persecution or government penalties, job loss or other repercussions.

Here are a few examples given. These cases and more are available through All Girls Allowed.

Case One – Forced Abortion and Sterilization

Victim: Zhang Wenfang

Date: May 23, 2008

Location: Honghu, Hubei

In 2008 Zhang Wenfang was nine months pregnant with her second husband’s baby. It would be the couple’s first child, but Zhang’s second. Her first marriage ended in divorce and she lost the child to the father’s family, but she was now happily remarried and a budding entrepreneur with her own trucking business.

One evening in late May, eleven family planning officials arrived at her home while her husband was away. The officials arrested and dragged a protesting Zhang to the hospital. Once there, Zhang received two injections into her stomach and was left alone in a guarded hospital room. Zhang soon went into labor and despite cries of pain received no medical help; she soon lost consciousness. When she awoke she was forced to sign a form accepting that both her baby and her uterus were gone. Zhang eventually discovered doctors had removed her cervix, right ovary, and fallopian tubes as well.

The uterine removal surgeries caused severe health problems for Zhang, including swollen kidneys, kidney malfunction, loss of teeth and hair, and lymphedema. These complications have confined Zhang to a wheel chair, causing her to lose her trucking business. In the months following, Zhang and her husband petitioned for justice in vain. The response they received from Honghu’s minister of family planning, Mr. Guo, was that he had cut out a thousand women’s’ uterus and no one had dared to say a word to him. They continued to protest only to receive beatings and humiliations from family planning officials, eventually driving her husband to leave her.

Today, four years later, Zhang lives with her mother, still petitioning for justice, unable to work or support herself, living in extreme poverty due to expensive hospital bills.

Case Seven – Forced Abortion and Extortion of Excessive Birth Control Fines

Victim: Pan Chunyan

Date: April 2012

Location: Xianyou, Fujian

In March of 2012, Family Planning Officials arrived at Wu Liangjie’s door and informed him that he would need to pay 30,000 RMB in three days or Pan Chunyan, his then seven-month pregnant wife, would need to report for an abortion. Wu and his father managed to borrow 20,000 RMB, which the village party secretary accepted.

Wu believed the situation was resolved until family planning officials arrived again in early April. Seven officials apprehended Pan while she was at the market and took her to Xianyou, Wu’s hometown. In Xianyou, officials locked Pan in a small room behind town hall with a few other pregnant women. Wu was furious; he had already paid the fine for an out-of-limit child, but his wife was still facing an abortion. After much protesting to the village secretary, Wu was returned his 20,000 RMB and told if he returned with 55,000 RMB, his wife would be released. Wu desperately collected the money and delivered it to the secretary, but they still kept Pan in prison.

Two days later, April 6, Pan became very ill; she was unable to eat anything and vomited. Instead of giving medical aid, those in the town hall demanded that she clean up her own vomit. Just as Pan was finishing cleaning, 60 officials arrived and transported her to the County Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Wu and other family members tried to come to Pan’s aid, but they were barred from even seeing her and were beaten when they protested. (Officials even beat up Pan’s 75-year-old grandmother.)

At the hospital Pan was dragged into a small room and restrained by several officials while a doctor injected toxins through the womb and into the head of the fetus. On April 8, Pan went into labor. The family was not even allowed to see the body of the dead baby boy; it is still unknown how the corpse was disposed of. Pan made multiple attempts at suicide following the abortion.

Later, Wu was offered back the 55,000RMB, but when he arrived at the office was told he would only be returned the money after he was sterilized.

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