By Reggie Littlejohn

In her December 8 article, “The Real Inconvenient Truth:  The Whole World Needs to Adopt China’s One-Child Policy,” syndicated columnist Diane Francis argues that “a planetary law, such as China’s One-Child Policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate.”  After extolling the “intelligence” of the China’s family planning program, she caricatures opponents as “leaders of the worlds big fundamentalist religions.”  She concludes:  “For those who balk at the notion that governments should control family sizes, just wait until the growing human population turns twice as much pastureland into desert as is not the case.”

This argument is as asinine as it is appalling. 

As president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, I was one of several One-Child Policy experts who testified before the United States Congressional Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission on November 10, 2009.  The Congressional Record from this Hearing is posted on our website:  www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org. 

When proposing that “governments should control family sizes,” Francis clearly has not done her homework.  If she had read the Congressional testimony, she would have learned that China’s One-Child Policy causes more violence against women and girls than any other official policy on earth.  China “controls family sizes” through enforced through forced abortion, forced sterilization and infanticide.

When we say, “forced abortion,” what do we mean?  At the November 10 hearing, we heard the heart-wrenching testimony of  “Wujian,” a victim of China’s One Child Policy.  Wujian went into hiding when she became pregnant without a birth permit.  The Family Planning Officials – China’s “Womb Police” -- broke into her hiding place and dragged her out for a forced abortion.  When the oxytocin injection failed to induce labor, they forced her onto an operating table and cut the nearly full term baby to pieces with scissors.  The nurse told her that she was one of 10,000 forced abortion in her town that year.

Is this the “government control” Francis so casually advocates for all the women of the world?

Nor has Francis done her homework on the opponents of China’s forced abortion policy.  On April 22 of this year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned forced abortion and forced sterilization in China, saying that they are “absolutely unacceptable.”  On January 19 of this year, another pro-choice activist, Felice Gaer, Director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, stated, “I’m fiercely pro-choice and I have never hesitated to bring up the issue of the violence and coercion associated with China’s population policy.”  She then described forced abortion as “torture.”  These opponents can hardly be characterized as “leaders of the world’s big fundamentalist religions.”

This is not a “fundamentalist” issue.  It is a women’s rights issue.  It does not matter whether you are pro-choice or pro-life on this issue.  No one supports forced abortion, because it is not a choice.

If Francis had researched the issue, she would have quickly discovered that there are at least four ways in which the One Child Policy causes violence against women and girls. 

1)      Forced abortion, a form of torture, is traumatic to women.

2)      Because of the traditional preference for boys, sex-selective abortion is common and most of the aborted fetuses are girls, a form of “gendercide.”

3)      Because of this gendercide, there are an estimated 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.

4)      China has the highest female suicide rate of any country in the world -- approximately 500 women a day.  I believe that this high suicide rate is    not unrelated to coercive family planning.

I call upon those readers who disagree with Diane Francis, and who want to see this violence stopped, to sign the petition against forced abortion on our website.

After a century of expanding women’s rights, it is shocking – indeed, frightening – that a woman of Francis’ stature would advocate to globalize China’s One-Child Policy – a policy of systematic violence and repression that would hurl women’s rights back to the dark ages.

About Reggie Littlejohn

Reggie Littlejohn serves as an expert on China's One-Child Policy and President of Women's Rights Without Frontiers.  www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org.  She has delivered an address at European Parliament in Brussels, briefed the White House, and testified before the U.S. Congress, concerning the One-Child Policy. A graduate of Yale Law School, Ms. Littlejohn has represented Chinese refugees in their political asylum cases in the United States.