China's Gender Imbalance Stems from 'Family Planning' Policy

London, England -- The ratio of baby girls to baby boys in China has dropped further below the international standard - the result, critics say, of its controversial "one-child policy," which in some cases has led to sex-selective abortion, infanticide and the abandonment of baby girls.

According to the latest figures released by the Chinese authorities this week, the gender imbalance has reached 117 boys for every 100 girls, up from 111:100 about ten years ago. The international norm is 106 boys to 100 girls.

China's population has reached 1.26 billion, below the government's target and U.N. projections, and Beijing said that proves its one-child policy is working.

Twenty years ago, China launched a program aimed at slowing its galloping population growth, by discouraging parents from having more than one child, using both incentives and penalties to enforce the policy.

Many rural peasants, who make up the majority of the population, are anxious to have a son to help support them in their old age, particularly in the absence of a social security blanket. Boys are also traditionally favored.

The rules were relaxed somewhat for rural people - who may have a second child if their firstborn is a girl, but not a third - yet the problems persist.

Human rights monitors say the gender imbalance is partly attributable to incomplete population statistics, as families sometimes avoid reporting the birth of a daughter so they continue trying for a son.

But it is also the result of blatant abuses, sometimes perpetrated by the parents themselves, sometimes by local-level family planning officials aiming to meet official quotas.

Although the practice is illegal, some Chinese parents abort baby girls after ascertaining their gender during an ultrasound scan.

The government tries to counter this by banning scans for gender determination, but sex-selective abortions continue, and human rights groups say the authorities do little to stop them.

A 1999 report on the International Planned Parenthood Federation website says that between 500,000 and 750,000 unborn Chinese girls are aborted every year after gender screening.

Human Rights in China, a Hong Kong-based group, has comprehensively studied and reported on China's family planning policies.

HRC spokesperson Beatrice Laroche said by telephone from Paris that the organization did not take a position on China's need to cut its population, but rather on "the methods being used by the government" to do so.

Laroche said coercive measures taken by local family planning officials sometimes affected entire families. For example, a woman who falls pregnant without permission may go into hiding during the pregnancy, but authorities will then detain her relatives as punishment. If the whole family disappears, their home may also be demolished. Beatings are regularly reported.

"The central government says it does not want violent means used, but there are very few examples of prosecutions, and even fewer of punishment. Local cadres act with impunity."

Asked what HRC would like to see happen, Laroche said there had to be an end to the abusive methods, and more effort put into "fighting prejudice against baby girls."

Other problems that needed addressing included the provision of a social security system for rural Chinese.

In a 1999 report, HRC explained that Chinese couples have to apply for birth permits before starting a pregnancy. After the permitted one or two children have been born, any future pregnancies have to be aborted, and women are forced to wear an IUD or be sterilized.

Those who fail to abide by the rules can lose their jobs and homes, and pay crippling fines.

Women can be forced to have abortions even up to the final trimester, and cases have been reported of babies being killed just before their expected birth date.

"Sterilization, one of the principal forms of birth control, may also be performed when parents suffer from alleged 'genetic disorders,' a practice justified by the eugenic objective of 'improving the quality of the population,' " the report said.

Abandonment is another problem. In a single district of one city alone, HRC said, "every year, no fewer than 20 abandoned baby girls are found in dustbins and corners."

In Hunan province, 92 percent of the 16,000 children abandoned over a four-year period were girls. Ninety per cent of "orphans" are girls too, another indication parents are more likely to abandon baby girls in the hopes of having a son.

"These practices [sex-selective abortions, infanticide and abandonment] are officially banned, but in reality they continue as the objective of meeting quotas appears to override concerns about children's health and survival," the reports said.

On the other hand, couples who comply are offered economic incentives, and much-publicized assurances of a higher quality of life, as spelled out in government propaganda slogans like "With two children you can afford a 14-inch TV, with one child you can afford a 21-inch TV."

The U.S. State Department's 2000 report on human rights worldwide noted that China's population control policy "relies on education, propaganda, and economic incentives, as well as on more coercive measures, including psychological pressure and economic penalties. For example, all workers at a factory or other work unit might lose a bonus if one worker has a child without permission."

Announcing the population figures this week, Beijing's chief statistician, Zhu Zhixin, acknowledged concerns about the sex ratio imbalance, but said the government was working to address this.

Source: Cybercast News Service; April 6, 2001 as quoted in Pro-Life Infonet 4/9/01 #2402   The Pro-Life Infonet is a daily compilation of pro-life news and information. To subscribe, send the message "subscribe" to: infonet-request@prolifeinfo.org. Infonet is sponsored by Women and Children First (http://www.prolifeinfo.org/wcf). For more pro-life info visit http://www.prolifeinfo.org and for questions or additional information email ertelt@prolifeinfo.org

Bush Should Intervene to Stop Population Control
By Steve Mosher

[Pro-Life Infonet Note: Steve Mosher is President of the Population Research Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to debunking the myths of overpopulation. He is an expert on the forced abortion policies of the Chinese government's one-child population control program.]

On February 15th the population controllers are slated to receive an additional $40 million for "population stabilization" (on top of the US Agency for International Development's current $385 million budget), unless President Bush intervenes. Recent evidence from Tanzania, Kenya and Peru suggests that he should. In the East African country of Tanzania, the road system consists of crumbling asphalt and dirt tracks. Travel in the countryside is only possible in 4-wheel-drive vehicles, or on foot. The land is fertile and there is no scarcity of food, but the lack of good roads has made it impossible to transport farm products to market. This keeps the villagers out of the cash economy, and makes the cost of owning a car or operating small machinery cost prohibitive. With the cost of fuel soaring, many villagers cannot even afford to buy kerosene for lamps.

Yet each month family planning officials, funded in part by the US Agency for International Development, appear in even the remotest villages. The lack of good roads is no barrier for these officials, for they drive new and expensive Land Rovers, capable of negotiating the most difficult terrain. They are part of the government's health service, but they bring with them not medicines for the village clinic, but contraceptives.

"They go door- to-door and tell each woman they have a choice," says Elizabeth Liagin, an investigative journalist who recently visited Tanzania. "She can elect to have 'the Shot' or 'the Pill.' No other choices are given." Confronted with an authority figure from the government, Liagin reports, village women feel intimidated to accept one or the other. If they opt for 'the Pill,' they are told by the family planning official to save the empty package as proof that they actually took the pills that were left for them. Abuses are not limited to Tanzania, reports Liagin, who has written a book about population control in Africa called Excessive Force: Power, Politics & Population control. In the neighboring country of Kenya, women undergoing a caesarean section are often sterilized without their foreknowledge or consent. Government officials will offer to implant Norplant or insert an IUD for free, but if complications arise the women are on their own.

In Peru, despite promises from USAID to correct family planning abuses, problems continue. Dr. Blanca Neira of Lima recently told Population Research Institute that state-funded hospitals routinely use manual vacuum aspirators on poor women who complain that their period is late. Doctors immediately and without consent (the women think that he is merely examining them) use an aspirator to evacuate the contents of the uterus. If the woman was pregnant, as many of these women undoubtedly are, this is a form of abortion. Last March the Foreign Operations Appropriations Committee, chaired by Representative Sonny Callahan, rebuffed President Clinton's attempt to give USAID a $149 million increase for family planning. Unless the Committee was assured that abuses in Peru and elsewhere had ceased, Chairman Callahan let it be known, the money would not be forthcoming.

Yet, under an agreement between Congress and the White House last fall, USAID will receive a budgetary increase of $40 million dollars on February 15, unless the new President puts a hold on these funds. Given the human rights abuses listed above, it would be inappropriate to do anything else.

The Pro-Life Infonet is a daily compilation of pro-life news and information. To subscribe, send the message "subscribe" to: infonet-request@prolifeinfo.org. Infonet is sponsored by Women and Children First (http://www.womenandchildrenfirst.org). For more pro-life info visit http://www.prolifeinfo.org and for questions or additional information email ertelt@prolifeinfo.org

U.S. Population Growth Better Than World's Population Control
By Steven W. Mosher
January 8, 20001

[Steven W. Mosher is president of the Population Research Institute. He is one of the world's foremost experts on international population control, including China's one-child, forced abortion policies.]

The first results of the decennial Census of 2000 are now in, and they bode well for the American people and their continued prosperity.

During a decade when the populations of other industrialized countries were stagnant or falling, US numbers grew by 13 percent. This modest increase in numbers means that future generations of Americans will enjoy a better quality of life.

In absolute numbers the population has grown from 248 million in 1990 to 281 million in April 2000. Much of this increase is attributable to immigration, rather than natural increase, which would be preferable on many counts.

Still, it is better to welcome strangers into our midst than to reject them, as Japan does. In the Land of the Rising Sun, an anemic birthrate and an inbred antipathy to new immigrants are combining to produce economic malaise and depopulation.

Those who equate a larger population with a larger environmental "footprint," as the current catch phrase goes, are oversimplifying. Our collective shoe size may be a multiple of our numbers but it is divided by our wealth.

And while our numbers have increased over the past few decades, our means have increased at an even faster rate. A robust economy is a huge stimulus toward conservation and provides the wherewithal to prevent pollution.

While the news coverage of America's modest population increase has been positive, the reaction of some groups has been predictably dyspeptic. Negative Population Growth, a group which would like to cut the US population in half (yes, I said in half) called the new numbers "alarming and shocking." What was truly alarming and shocking, however, was NPG's proposed remedy: a national population policy.

For anyone familiar with China's one-child policy, NPG's proposal that we set "overall U.S. population goals" is chilling. For it was precisely this-the setting of overall population goals-that resulted in the tragedy of China's one-child policy, as Communist Party bureaucrats sought to meet the goals handed down to them by the Chinese leadership.

Soon the Chinese government was dictating to couples the number and spacing of their children, aborting and sterilizing all who didn't conform to the plan.

The woman in charge of Chinese family planning, Vice Premier Chen Muhua, publicly stated in 1979 that "China is a socialist country. We should be able to control reproduction under a state plan the same way we control the production of steel and bicycles."

But America has never had economic central planning, which robs both producers and consumers of their freedom. Reproductive central planning would be equally inimical to liberty.

Why weren't the American people given some say, NPG asks petulantly, in "whether this kind of staggering growth is desirable?" They were. American parents are still free to decide for themselves the number and spacing of their children. Most still decide to have two, despite the anti-people propaganda that pervades the public square.

Our current modest levels of population increase should keep the US economy humming along in the years to come. Immigration, a vital part of keeping America strong, should continue. Young couples should not be made to feel guilty about starting a family. Be fruitful and multiply. It's good for all of us.

Pro-Life Infonet, January 14, 2000.  The Pro-Life Infonet is a daily compilation of pro-life news and information. To subscribe, send the message "subscribe" to: infonet-request@prolifeinfo.org. Infonet is sponsored by Women and Children First (http://www.prolifeinfo.org/wcf). For more pro-life info visit http://www.prolifeinfo.org and for questions or additional information email ertelt@prolifeinfo.org

Abortion Cuts Russian Birth Rate to Critical Levels

Moscow, Russia -- With only one pregnancy in three carried to term because of the prevalence of abortions, Russia's birth rate has fallen to critical levels, the head of the statistics department of the Russian Academy of Sciences said Thursday.

Women of childbearing age are having an average of 1.3 child each, lower than the normal level of 2.3 and closer to the critical floor of 1.1, said Olga Frolova.

"We are facing a serious decrease of the population rate," said Frolova, who noted that abortion still remained the main contraceptive for Russian women, nine years after the collapse of the Soviet regime.

There are more than two million abortions performed every year in Russia, said Vladimir Kulakov, the director of the obstetrics and gynecology center at the Academy of Medical Sciences.

The Russian population is expected to drop by 700,000 in 2001 and will total 144.5 million, according to the state statistics committee quoted by Interfax.

Over the past eight years, Russia's population has decreased by close to two percent with 2.8 million fewer people, according to official figures. Deaths far outpace births by a ratio of 14.7 in 1,000 compared to 8.4.

Only 1.2 million children are born each year in Russia, well below the two million needed to keep the population at existing levels, said Kulakov.

Source: Agence France Presse; October 5, 2000 as quoted in the Pro-Life Infonet 10/10/00 #2270

An article in May in WorldNetDaily.com, Inc., by Anthony C. LoBaido calls it "perhaps the single greatest disinformation campaign in human history."  The popular view is that there are too many people on the planet and as the population continues its explosion we face famine and all sorts of natural catastrophes as a result.  It's popular, but not true.  LoBaido points out that the major cities in Asia -  Bangkok, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, and HongKong - are overpopulated but prosperous.  Compare Taiwan and China - Taiwan has a population density of 1,460 per square mile, China has 360 per square mile.  But Taiwan's per capita gross domestic product is $16,500 while China's is $3,600.  Europe is facing the necessity of large immigration from the Third World countries.  In this article, lots of other interesting facts and figures about population and the push for birth control.  Updated 8/22/00

Updated 6/26/00

EUROPE -- European government officials have begun to warn that pension systems for the retired and elderly face economic collapse because there are too few children being born to pay into the systems as the population ages, according to a report by the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-Fam). C-Fam said in its report that most European countries are no longer replacing their populations because of a negative birth rate. "The average woman in an advanced industrial society must have 2.1 children in her lifetime in order for the country's population to remain stable," the group said. "The United Nations reports that 61 countries, and all of Europe, are experiencing 'below replacement fertility.' Experts expect this number to grow to as many as 80 countries in the coming year."
  
The report said the problem is even more severe in the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe. It said population levels are expected to drop by a third by 2050 and those countries have the lowest fertility rates in the world -- 1.3 per woman compared to 1.6 per woman in western Europe. As fewer children are born, the population ages, C-Fam warned, and must rely on increasing social security and medical systems.

"The bind doubles as this growing need cannot be met by a shrinking number of younger and more productive workers," they said. C-Fam said the United Nations' recommendation of dramatically increased immigration is unfeasible considering the current political upheaval over a relatively small number of immigrant workers. And pro-lifers in Europe are worried that the increasing strain on medical systems will lead to increased euthanasia.

JAPAN -- In the hallways, bathrooms and lunchroom of the Bandai Corporation, a major Japanese toy maker, the talk these days revolves around one topic -- an announcement that the company will pay employees one million yen, or $10,000, for every baby they have after their second child. Although many other companies give congratulatory bonuses to workers who become parents, Bandai is offering the largest baby bounty in Japan, which is struggling to reverse record-low birthrates that pose many long-term underpopulation problems. The offer, which began last month, is part of an effort by the government and employers to persuade the Japanese, who have one of the lowest birthrates in the world, to go forth and multiply. The average birthrate for a Japanese woman was 1.38 children in 1998, a record low for Japan and one of the world's lowest. The population is 126 million. But demographers estimate that the number will fall, to 105 million.

Pro-Life Infonet, June 4, 2000.  The Pro-Life Infonet is a daily compilation of pro-life news and information. To subscribe, send the message "subscribe" to: infonet-request@prolifeinfo.org. Infonet is sponsored by Women and Children First (http://www.prolifeinfo.org/wcf). For more pro-life info visit http://www.prolifeinfo.org and for questions or additional information email ertelt@prolifeinfo.org

US Census Report Reveals Benefits of Population Growth

Washington--- America's greatest resource is her people. This belief is enshrined in our founding documents, in which human life, in all its abundance, is affirmed as the first inalienable right. This belief is moreover demonstrated by our history. From a scant 3 million colonists scattered along the Eastern Seaboard of North America, we have grown to 270 million today. And with that great increase in population has come a cornucopia of prosperity.

Comparing the America of 1900 with the America of 2000, as the US Census Bureau has recently done, confirms the link between population and prosperity (US Census Bureau, "1999 US Census Bureau Statistical Abstract: Compendium for the Millennium," December 1999). At the turn of the last century, the US had a population of 76 million, the average life span was 47, and Standard and Poor's composite index was 6.2.

As our population boomed over the past century, so did life-spans, scientific innovation and entrepreneurial activity. Today America numbers 270 million, the average life span is 77, and the Standard and Poor Index has reached 1,430, some 231 times its mark a century before.

Entering the new millennium, the US Census Bureau report makes clear, America has never been so populous, productive and healthy. America's farmland, thanks to the ingenuity of tens of thousands of scientists and the hard work of millions of farmers, continues to set records in yield per acre and total yield. New scientific discoveries have paved the way for longer, healthier lives, and have helped cut death rates in half from 17.2 people per 1,000 per year in 1900, to 8.60 per 1,000 per year in 1997.

At the same time, however, American family size has shrunk from 4.8 persons at the turn of the century to a remarkably low 2.6 persons in 1996. Declining birthrates and increasing life expectancies have combined to propel the average age of the population upward. The percentage of Americans aged 65 and over is rapidly increasing, and will grow from its current 16.5% to 24.3% by 2020. By 2050 America will be much grayer,with fully one-third of the entire population over 60 years of age.

The most troubling portent for America's future is our rapidly falling birthrate. We are no longer having enough children to replace ourselves. For the first time in American history, our nation is faced with the very real prospect of population decline.

By 2020, the Total Fertility Rate--the average number of children born per woman--is projected to decline to only 1.5 (1998 UN Revision, World Population Prospects, 413 [low variant projection]). As a result of these unprecedently low fertility rates, America's population is projected to begin declining about 2030. Scarcely noticeable at first, the decline will accelerate in subsequent decades.

Those who argue that a demographic decline will not necessarily lead to a social and economic implosion ought to visit dying Europe, where the most vibrant sector of the economy deals with death. The mortuaries and cemeteries are doing a booming business, while the maternity wards and the preschools stand empty.

As the new century dawns, Americans are faced with a historical choice. Will we remain open to a further increase in our numbers--an infusion of new blood, if you will--or will we condemn ourselves to a gray and declining future? If we conclude (with Pogo and the anti-people ideologues), that "We have met the enemy and he is us," then our future decline as a people seems inevitable. Those who read history, however, will reach a different conclusion: For America's people have always been her greatest asset.

Pro-Life Infonet 1/11/00      Source: Population Research Institute's Weekly Briefing, 1/7/00   The Pro-Life Infonet is a daily compilation of pro-life news and information. To subscribe, send the message "subscribe" to: infonet-request@prolifeinfo.org. Infonet is sponsored by Women and Children First (http://www.prolifeinfo.org/wcf). For more pro-life info visit http://www.prolifeinfo.org and for questions or additional information email ertelt@prolifeinfo.org

Other commentaries on the lack of a population explosion problem:

Alan Greenspan
Peter Drucker