Society for the Protection of Unborn Children
3 Whitacre Mews, Stannary Street
London, SE11 4AB, United Kingdom
Telephone: (020) 7091 7091
Fax: (020) 7820 3131
Email: information@spuc.org.uk

China's one-child policy

China's one-child policy has recently been described as "arguably the greatest bioethical atrocity on the globe" (Wendy McElroy, Fox News Views, 24 September 2002). Since the 1970s, the Chinese government has conducted a programme of population control through forced abortion, infanticide, forced sterilisation, forced use of abortifacient birth control, abandonment of children and deliberate killing of orphans through neglect. The programme is enforced through severe penalties for those who do not comply with the policy, including extortionate fines, destruction of property, imprisonment and even torture.

Despite over three decades of reports in the West of the crimes of the one-child policy, very little is being done by governments and human rights organisations about the policy. This is partly because the policy's victims are mainly the unborn, whom the Western world largely neglect, but also partly because many Western governments and wealthy population control agencies support the policy in various ways. Most of the opposition to the policy has come from pro-life organisations like SPUC. SPUC has in recent years taken a leading role on the issue, working closely with expert groups, in particular the Population Research Institute (PRI) and the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-FAM). Pro-lifers are therefore urged to help support the work of this international pro-life coalition against the one-child policy by lobbying politicians, governments and human rights groups.

In 1979 Chinese Vice-Premier Chen Muhua described the one-child policy saying: "A policy of encouragement and punishment for maternity, with encouragement as the main feature, will be implemented. Parents having one child will be encouraged, and strict measures will be enforced to control the birth of two or more babies. Everything should be done to insure that the natural population growth rate in China falls to zero by 2000."

It has been calculated that between 1971 and 1985 alone there were some 100 million coercive birth-control "operations" in China, including forced sterilisations and forced abortions (Dr John Aird, Slaughter of the Innocents, AEI Press, 1991). In 1983 a massive campaign of compulsory birth control surgeries was carried out, which reportedly produced 14 million abortions, 21 million sterilisations and 18 million IUD insertions. This campaign was directed by the then minister-in-charge of the State Family Planning Commission (SFPC), Qian Xinzhong.

In September 2002, the Chinese regime passed the Law on Population and Birth Planning. Misleading claims about the law are being put forward by defenders of the one-child policy, but the law's true purpose is to "uphold a single-child policy for married couples" (article 18; note that unmarried people are not permitted to have children) and to legitimise coercion by reclassifying it as law enforcement. Defenders of the policy also claim that coercive practices are simply "abuses". Rather, the new law is clear that coercion is integral to the policy: family planning minister Zhao Bingli warned that "from the date that the law took effect, those who have an extra-policy birth must face the music."

In-depth information about China's one-child policy can be found in SPUC's February 2004 submission to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee.

What you need to do: letter writing campaign

Write to the Chinese embassy:

• protesting at the Chinese regime's denial of the right to life of unborn children, its neglect of new-born children and its violations of the human rights of couples.
• telling them that the Chinese regime's attempt to whitewash its new population control law have been exposed in the West.
• informing them that you will continue to protest against the one-child policy until it is abolished.

You can contact the Embassy of the People's Republic of China by writing to 49-51 Portland Place, London W1B 1JL, email: press@chinese-embassy.org.uk.

You could also write to your Member of Parliament (MP), either copying your letter to the Chinese Embassy or writing a separate letter - click here.