SHANDONG–What changes the identity of a baby from a human being to “Medical waste”? For the nation of China, the routine practices of forced sterilization, infanticide, and abortion have reduced human life to a mere statistic.
The brutal story of China’s One Child Policy is told in the millions of fetuses and babies aborted in killed in the name of population control in China. The evidence is discarded, the bodies vanish–other than meticulously kept records proudly stating the percentage of births averted on a yearly basis, little physical evidence is allowed to exist. But occasionally, the truth washes up on the shore, for all to see.
Reggie Littlejohn, President of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers and ChinaAid One Child Policy Expert, is a staunch advocate against China’s One Child Policy. Following the recent development of the Xinhua (China State News Agency) reporting on the resurfacing of 21 bodies of babies killed at full term, which washed up on a river bank two weeks ago in Jining City, Shandong province, Reggie wrote the following article published in the EpochTimes. This event eerily echoes a similar discovery of 8 mishandled aborted fetuses in Xiangfan CIty, Hubei province, on June 23, 2009. In that case, officials determined the remains were also regarded as “aborted baby waste” and that these, and other dead bodies, were not handled properly by the Central Hospital of Xiangfan City.
China: Dead Babies Discarded in a River
Twenty-one dead babies found in river
By Reggie Littlejohn
April 8, 2010
A woman cycles pass a billboard encouraging couples to have only one child, along a road leading to a village in the suburb of Beijing, 25 March 2001. (Goh Chai Hin/AFP/Getty Images)
Most people know that China has a one-child policy. But do they stop to think how this policy is enforced? It is enforced through forced abortion, forced sterilization—and at times—infanticide.
This grisly truth was reported last week: according to Xinhua, China’s official news agency, 21 bodies of fetuses and babies were found discarded in a river in the village of Jiming, Shandong Province, in East China. Xinhua stated, “The bodies may have been dumped by cleaners from local hospitals after abortions and induced labor. Such dead bodies are treated as medical waste by hospitals.”
The Chinese communist authorities, of course, immediately cremated the bodies, destroying evidence. If outside sources could have examined the corpses, we could have learned whether the majority were girls (consistent with gendercide) and whether the skulls of the full term babies had been punctured (consistent with forced abortion or infanticide).
During a congressional hearing on Nov. 10, 2009, before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, I presented two documents, recently leaked out of China, setting forth new information on the Chinese communist practice of infanticide. According to these sources, practices include:
• Puncturing the brain and injecting it with poison during labor or immediately after birth;
• throwing the infant on the ground; and
• drowning by placing the infant in a bucket of water and stepping on him or her
In the United States we’ve had 50 million abortions since Roe vs. Wade. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) boasts that it has “prevented” 400 million births through its One-Child Policy, which was instituted in 1979. That’s more than the entire population of the United States!
Whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice, everyone opposes forced abortion because it’s not a choice. Pro-choice advocate Hillary Clinton has condemned it repeatedly.
China’s one-child policy causes more violence to women and girls than any other official policy on earth.
Forced abortion is traumatic to women. It is a form of torture. To read one woman’s harrowing account, visit http://www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org/
Because of the traditional preference for boys, sex-selective abortion is common and most of the aborted fetuses are girls. In addition, female infanticide is a problem. According to a recent study published in the British Medical Journal, the overall sex ratio for China is 126 boys for every 100 girls. Nine provinces had ratios of over 160, for second children. The article states, “Sex selective abortion accounts for almost all the excess males.”
Because of this gendercide, there are then 37 million more men than women in China today. This gender imbalance is a major force driving sexual trafficking of women and girls in Asia.
China has the highest female suicide rate of any country in the world. It is the only nation in which more women than men kill themselves. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 500 women a day end their lives. Could this extraordinary suicide rate be related to coercive family planning?
Women who have violated the policy are often forcibly sterilized. Forced sterilization is a serious human rights abuse and can lead to life-long health complications.
Some people argue that because the United States owes China so much money, we can’t challenge them on their miserable human rights record. I disagree. Chinese citizens cannot speak freely about the one-child policy. Blind activist Chen Guangcheng told the world about the fact that there were 130,000 forced abortions in Linyi County, Shandong Province, in one year, 2005. He is now serving a four-year, three-month prison sentence on false charges. He has been tortured, is gravely ill, and is being denied medical treatment.
Those of us in the west who can speak out, must speak out for those who cannot. As Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
Reggie Littlejohn is President of the Women’s Rights Without Frontiers and represents Human Rights Without Frontiers and China Aid Association. For more information and what you can do, see:www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org
Hear Reggie Littlejohn’s expert commentary, and read the devastating news, covered by The Epoch Times and other international news agencies. AUDIO 4/0720/10 Littlejohn Interview, Amy Oliver Show, KFKA 1310 am, Colorado (10 minutes)
4/08/2010 China: Dead Babies Discarded in a River
4/07/2010 Bodies of Fetuses and Babies Found Floating in River in East China
4/06/2010 21 Bodies of Fetuses and Babies Found Discarded in River in East China – Featured Article, Christian News Today
4/02/2010 21 Bodies of Fetuses and Babies Found Discarded in River in East China, The Cypress Times
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