Quote of the Day 10-20-10
(Click link below to watch the video interview.)
China’s 1-child policy leads to an estimated 13 million reported abortions every year, with many of those ordered by the authorities enforcing the system.
Al Jazeera’s Melissa Chan gained access to a hospital in the southeastern city of Xiamen, where she found one mother in a terrible condition.
Xiao Ai Ying was forced to have an abortion 8 months into her pregnancy because she already has a 10-year-old girl….
Mothers who violate China’s one-child policy usually pay a fine anywhere from $1 to $40,000, but are then often sterilized to prevent them from having another child.
~Al Jazeera, October 20
Oct.20, 2010 10:11 am |
Quote of the Day |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Murdering commie basterds
China hates females. Where are the feminists on this? These Unborn/preborn females are FUTURE WOMEN…..yet the feminists are silent.
This is why I have a HUGE problem with both the overpopulation and environmental screamers. Because at the end of the day, humans are to blame, therefore, get rid of the human.
When fools like Robert Berger starts rambling about how there’s just too many of us, oh my gosh, we’re all gonna die, I have to laugh.
Thirteen million in China alone every year. Thirteen million. And that still doesn’t satisfy his lust for downsizing.
The feminists have been silent on this for a long time. I get spam from all kinds of organizations looking for my support. I have never received an email from a women’s group upset about forced abortions. Who’dathunk I’d be pleased about an Al Jazeera report? Thanks to Melissa Chan for reporting.
My heart breaks for these victims of forced abortions. How these women find the strength to go on is beyond me.
This poor woman in the video is still carrying her deceased child which they injected lethally in utero. :(
Janet, I don’t know how they do it, either. I would be inconsolable.
I would be inconsolable.
Exactly.
Where’s the article on RH Reality Check about this crime against women? Where’s the outrage from Amanda Marcotte that the Chinese government is telling women what to do with their bodies? Why doesn’t this seem to bother them? I won’t hold my breath waiting for them to be outraged and come to the defense of Chinese women who are making their own “choice” to have another child.
Jill, you are SO right. They couldn’t care less about choice. They are pro-abortion.
The video was so hard to watch.
How long, O Lord?
To ignore this issue is a short-sighted as ignoring survivors of wartime rape who are forced to bring those pregnancies to term. Forced anything–pregnancy or abortion–is no choice. It’s China’s poor excuse for sustainable development. There are effective health promotion measures, such as public campaigns that encourage birth spacing, that can decrease exploding growth rates and respect human dignity. But these efforts can’t be singular–development policy that focuses solely on women’s bodies is offensive and ineffective. China’s One Child Policy deflects attention from institutional waste, from the very real need to increase everybody’s access to resources needed to live and thrive.
Megan,
Try some “I” statements.
I think
I feel
I believe
And it’s false that RH Reality Check hasn’t commented on women’s, and human, rights abuses in China. Before the 2008 Olympics:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/08/19/behind-spectacle-womens-human-rights-china
And discussion of Obama’s recent renewal of support for UNPF explains how funding for family planning will prevent abortions, and has not been demonstrated to fund forced abortions:
“In the implementation of its “one-child policy,” China has in some parts of the country condoned gross violations of its citizen’s human rights through coercive abortions and forced sterilizations. The United States has withheld funds Congress intended for UNFPA based on the faulty assumption that UNFPA’s assistance to China equates with tacit support for coercive practices.
What is faulty about this assumption? The US government’s own investigation found “… no evidence that UNFPA has knowingly supported or participated in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization in the PRC [People’s Republic of China].” The US government’s team also recommended that UNFPA be given the full $34 million that was withheld.
Everyone has concerns about China’s approach to family planning, including UNFPA. UNFPA is on the record stating that the “one-child policy” is coercive and should be eliminated. UNFPA’s small demonstration project in China is designed to move China away from a top-down approach to family planning in favor of a rights-based approach.”
By revoking all funding for UNPF, President Bush yanked the rug, so to speak, out from beneath many, many women and girls. Investigations show that UNFP dollars have not been used to fund forced abortions, and to maintain this status, continuous oversight must be achieved.
Wow. Megan you are amazing.
“To ignore this issue is a short-sighted as ignoring survivors of wartime rape who are forced to bring those pregnancies to term.”
I mean, do you ever go back over and read what you write?? Talk about rabbit holes and false trails, you bring in rape and pregnancy to deflect the issue! You just can stop with ‘forced abortion is wrong’ no, no, you’ve got to throw in a dig to pro-lifers while you’re at it! I know that many of the anti-lifers just personally hate us, but it doesn’t matter how annoying we are. Abortion is murder.
You know what else yanks the rug out from under women? Female infanticide, sex selective abortion, and forced sterilization. We shouldn’t give a penny to China at all for anything.
Come on, Megan!
Are you sickened and disgusted with what happened? Can you imagine being this woman? Did you see her pregnant belly holding her dead child? Do you wonder what the sister is going to think after feeling her sibling kick? How about the helpless husband?
I once met this nice older Chinese gentleman who worked as a dishwasher in a restaurant. He told me that his life here as a dishwasher was better than the life of a college professor that he’d left behind in China. When asked why he left to come here, he said that he decided to leave since he was a teenager but couldn’t afford to until later in his adult years. “What made you decide?” I asked. He replied, “I followed my father down to the river one morning and watched as he drowned my baby sister.”
Oh, ninek. That is heartbreaking. :(
I cannot imagine being this mother. Her story has haunted me all day.
Her bruises will haunt me. She fought like hell.
Ninek,
Truly horrifying.
I have no words.
“You know what else yanks the rug out from under women? Female infanticide, sex selective abortion, and forced sterilization. We shouldn’t give a penny to China at all for anything.”
So to send a clear message to China for its human rights violations, we revoke all funding for any family planning program, whether it is linked to the practices we wish to condemn or not. That’s like embargoing a country whose dicatator we don’t like. Should we show support to the dictator? No, but if the people of the country have been depending on us for critical resources, it would be cruel to cut off supplies cold turkey. What will happen to the women who can’t access birth control without UNFPA funding? More women will have unwanted pregnancies. Think about how much worse the problem would be in China if women did not have some degree of control over preventive family planning.
Also, you seem still assume that UNFPA is funding coerced abortions, despite evidence to the contrary found by program coordinators and investigators. You can’t say that squarely in the face of evidence. Take, for instances, the policy change UNFPA initiated in Hainan province that lifted the rigid “four year birth spacing between first and second child” rule. The result: fewer abortions. But don’t take my word for it: http://www.unfpa.org/public/News/pid/109
So in short, I am absolutely disgusted at the treatment this woman faced, and China’s other egregious human rights violations that occur every day. HOWEVER, I know a knee-jerk reaction is going to probably make things worse in the long run. Bush revoked funding for UNFPA programs in China, and where is the evaluation that proves doing so actually decreased sex selective and forced abortions? Nowhere.
I am absolutely disgusted at the treatment this woman faced,
Good girl, Megan!! You did it!! Progress. :)
Megan,
I know, it’s all Bush’s fault. Blame it on Bush.
“That’s like embargoing a country whose dicatator we don’t like.”
Yes, yes it is! I think, despite your resistance, you’re beginning to get it. I’m glad this news report is bringing this situation to light.
Reactionary, meathead foreign policy does nothing to help the people of a country. What does embargoing do in the short-term? Denies the people of a country material resources they’ve counted on us to provide, and people starve and suffer. What did Reagan once say? “A hungry child knows no politics”?
Megan,
a woman has been brutalized, her child murdered, her husband traumatized, and your biggest priority is to give money… Amazing. Next time I see a news story about someone beaten, brutalized, and/or murdered, I’ll be sure to blame the victim and hand the perp some money and a condom.
China is a brutal regime. They should not get one penny of aid at all. I stick by that. You on the other hand, stick by defending infanticide and feticide as an acceptable solution to problems.
What do I say? A dead child knows no politics.
I can’t help but notice that there was no call to wear a color today to protest the bullying of pregnant Chinese women.
“China is a brutal regime. They should not get one penny of aid at all. I stick by that.”
Let’s break this down. An embargo is intended to punish a country’s leaders by making conditions worse for the country’s citizens. We stop sending money and people have less access to health care, to food, to critical resources. Let’s put this in terms you seem to understand: hungrier and sicker women=less healthy pregnancies=less healthy babies. Or: women unable to access contraception=more pregnancies=more forced abortions.
And in your blind fury you seem to be ignoring evidence that a) the US has set up measurements to make sure 0 US dollars have gone to forced abortions b) investigators have found no evidence of UNFPA funds used for these purposes. Indeed, Secretary of State H. Clinton is vocal about about the atrocity of forced abortions:
http://www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org/index.php?nav=hillary_clinton
Keep defending bullies. I hope you weren’t hypocritical enough to wear purple yesterday. The Chinese mother? She’s wearing her purple on her arms.
“A woman has been brutalized, her child murdered, her husband traumatized, and your biggest priority is to give money… Amazing.”
What’s your biggest priority? To look at foreign policy that could alleviate/prevent this situation from occurring or bawl on JillStanek about how horrible everything is and why aren’t feminists doing anything about it and why can’t we just tell China to talk to the hand?
I despise China’s coercive One Child Policy. US and UN-based human rights groups have been trying to change these laws for years. In the meantime, we can do our part to alleviate suffering by helping women find access to health care so they have healthier pregnancies, and help them avoid getting pregnant if they don’t want to.
“I can’t help but notice that there was no call to wear a color today to protest the bullying of pregnant Chinese women.”
And there’s no call to wear red for rape victims in the Congo. There’s suffering in the US too. I wear purple today for my best friend who was brutalized in college for being gay. Sorry if that displeases you.
“Keep defending bullies. I hope you weren’t hypocritical enough to wear purple yesterday. The Chinese mother? She’s wearing her purple on her arms.”
Clever. Show me where I’m “defending bullies,” or how your misguided anger will help anyone.
ninek, C’mon will ya get with the times already? You are just no longer hip and cool. It’s politically correct to defend people against bullying but only if those people bullied happen to be gay and support the killing of preborn babies.
“It’s politically correct to defend people against bullying but only if those people bullied happen to be gay and support the killing of preborn babies.”
Right, because I have no personal interest in preventing my queer friends from being harassed, or seeing kids I work with made completely miserable at school. Because hate crimes are just the cause celebre.
Go get a life, both of you. “Oh why haven’t we walked on the moon yet waaaah it’s because we’ve aborted all our future astronauts!” Yap, and the conditions children are born into have very little to do with whether they grow up to be astronauts or not, right?
Right, because I have no personal interest in preventing my queer friends from being harassed, or seeing kids I work with made completely miserable at school.
Why are we calling them “queer?” I thought that word went out a long time ago. Huh. Guess I’m not up on the trends.
BTW, when you said your gay friends were “brutalized” in college, did you mean actually, physically brutalized? Like the Chinese woman was brutalized?
Abortion is the most deadly form of bullying. Could abortionists possibly pick on anyone smaller or more defenseless?
Get a life? I’d like to get back over 50 million lives, actually.
Love’s the movement Kel, you’re so right. Let’s create some more hierarchies of suffering while we’re at it, because that’s so productive. Millions of people wasting to death with tuberculosis or AIDS, women dying of septic shock from unsafe birthing conditions, wartime rape, environmental destruction, extreme poverty in Haiti–everything else pales in comparison to these horrible conditions, so why even worry about a few forced births or pregnancies in China?
Sorry, but you’ve lost me completely in that rant, Megan. What are you talking about? Did I miss a post somewhere?
“Millions of people wasting to death with tuberculosis or AIDS, women dying of septic shock from unsafe birthing conditions, wartime rape, environmental destruction, extreme poverty in Haiti”
Exactly Megan and you spend your time supporting something as violent as abortion?
What day is set aside to oppose let’s say poverty in Haiti? What color should we wear that day to oppose this extreme poverty?
You know, ’cause I wanna be politically correct and so cool like you.
Right, and I guess I missed the part where women can’t speak out against both homophobia in the US and violations of women’s reproductive rights abroad. Oh but I forgot! Gay people are really just a bunch of troublemakers. If my close friend weren’t so–gay–then an angry cohort of frat boys wouldn’t have felt compelled to terrorize him every night he walked home from work to his dorm room. So simple! Finding some vag would have tots cured him of those nasty nasty perversions and brought peace and harmony to frat row’s gendered universe.
What’s your problem, Prax? Your posts are getting kind of dumb, sorry to say. “I wanna be politically correct and so cool like you.” Glad we’re in the seventh grade. Any other humanitarian issues besides gay rights that aren’t legitimate enough for me to support?
Oops, gots to go toot my liberal do-gooder horn and pick up a cat I’m looking after for the local animal shelter. Yep, absolutely the coolest.
“Oops, gots to go toot my liberal do-gooder horn”
You said it, not me.
Wow, Megan, your faculties of misinterpretation are boundless.
I am not in the least offended that people want to support our gay friends, fellow students, and coworkers. Nice tangent to go off on all by yourself, though, and try to paint us as homophobes. Fail!
My point was that when something is trending on the ‘net or in the news, people get themselves all worked up over it. But year after year China has continued to enforce a brutal and inhuman policy. Who wears a special color for that? I guess it’s just not trendy enough for the rest of you.
“Nice tangent to go off on all by yourself, though, and try to paint us as homophobes. Fail!”
Actually, no, since you’ve expressed disdain for non-normative, non-hetero sex over and over again. You’ve already painted yourself out to be narrow-minded and intolerant. Second, and i can’t even believe I’m dignifying your claim: human rights activists have spoken out against abuse in China for years, and the extent of the damage wrought by the One Child Policy is now coming to public attention. Unfortunately there are human rights violations happening right in our backyard that also deserve attention. If by “trendy” you mean particularly egregious, then I’ll buy that. Maybe you could ask Matthew Shepard’s mom whether gay rights is a “trendy” cause.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. What have you done to raise awareness of human rights/women’s rights abuses in China?
“What have you done to raise awareness of human rights/women’s rights abuses in China?”
Megan, She is prolife. Duh.
Maybe you could ask Gianna Jessen what she thinks about you supporting the slaugher of preborn humans.
Megan,
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
LOL I love that you continually tell us to shove our “faith” but then you quote the Bible out of context whenever you think it works for you in conversation.
Thanks. I needed that. :)
He said she said you said oh no you did NOT what was this thread about again??