What the Anti-Lifers Say.

       "Socialism should make it possible to regulate the reproduction of human beings. We should be able to produce human beings under a quota system, just as we produce bicycles and tons of steel."
- Vice Premier Chan Muhua, Director of the Chinese Family
     Planning Board.[1]

       Chinese and American anti-lifers claim that there is no such thing as a "forced abortion." They say that stories of forced abortions in China are merely fairy tales spun by "anti-choice propagandists" so that they may "force their narrow views on other countries" by destroying or hobbling international United States population control assistance programs.
       As Qian Xinzhong, Minister in Charge of the State Family Planning Commission, states: "State guidance is by no means a compulsory command; we absolutely oppose compulsory methods."[2]
       Those who support and applaud China's forced abortion and sterilization program also claim that "anti-choice fanatics" hope to eliminate 'reproductive rights' in the United States by using these "fictional" stories to frighten people with the specter of coercion.
       Finally, the pro-abortionists strain credulity to the limit by alleging that a forced abortion program cannot happen in the United States - unless the pro-life movement makes significant progress and establishes a eugenics program that eliminates the "unfit" and encourages the "fit" to breed more!

The Origins of the Chinese Population Control Program.

       The Basic Philosophy. The vast majority of people (even most pro-abortionists) agree that forcing women to have abortions is not a good thing.
       So where does the coercive population control philosophy come from?
       It originates in the same place from which all anti-life monstrosities emerge: The utilitarian philosophy. This worldview holds that a goal that is deemed to be "good" by the people in power may be attained by any means available.
       Not by moral means.
       Not by ethical means.
       Just by any possible means.
       The Chinese are adhering to a simple five-step syllogism. It is summarized as follows;

1. Too many people = bad.
2. We have too many people.
3. We have the necessary degree of control over our populace.
4. Therefore we can reduce our population.
5. So we will reduce our population by all available means.

       Those who think that this view seems simplistic should not chuckle too soon. American abortionists and their toadies have been saying exactly the same thing for more than a quarter of a century, although their statements are couched in a luxurious layer of soothing Newspeak and reassuring (but meaningless) qualifications.
       For example, abortionists Selig Newbardt and Harold Schulman claim in their "how-to" book Techniques of Abortion that "An abortion should not infringe upon the rights of any other woman or man. A continuing pregnancy might infringe on these rights - because a new person has to have clean air, clean water, electric power, dispose of his waste materials, be educated, and require protection and health services."[3]
       Notice that the authors' sweeping statement qualifies any "continuing pregnancy" - wanted or not - as a possible violation of the rights of others. This philosophy, if accepted widely enough, will certainly mandate abortion wherever it holds sway.
       This is precisely the mentality that eventually led to the Chinese forced abortion program. As shown later in this Chapter, many or most of the 'leading (b)lights' of the pro-abortion movement have been calling for mandatory contraception, abortion, sterilization and euthanasia in this and other countries since the late 1960s.

       Goals of the Forced Abortion Program. Most pro-life activists have heard at least sketchy details about China's forced abortion program. The direct cause of this coercion is the ridiculous goal set by China's "one child" policy planners in 1980: population stability at 1,054 million by the year 2004, with a precipitous decline to only 370 million by the year 2080.
       This utterly unrealistic goal will supposedly be achieved by firmly controlling the country's massive population by any necessary means. These means include forced abortion, forced sterilization, forced use of contraceptives, and widespread female infanticide.

       Origins: The National Security Council. Since the mid-1970s, the United States has been deeply committed to both domestic and foreign population control programs. Billions of dollars of our tax money have been used to implement many questionable programs, including, most notably, the Chinese forced-abortion atrocity.
       The National Security Council (NSC) is the highest U.S. bureaucracy charged with the planning and direction of foreign policy. One of the most vital aspects of this policy is population control.
       The idea that drives NSC population control policy is fundamentally racist and elitist. The concept is this: If there are too many of "them" (people of foreign races) and too few of "us" (pure White and other acceptable American races), then the worldwide influence of the United States will decline, and eventually, if the situation becomes serious enough, our country will cease to be a "global player" entirely. Therefore, we must use our vast reserves of "foreign assistance" money now to cut down on threatening "foreign" populations, while we still have the chance.
       This policy is a very slightly altered version of the Nazis' Lebensraum concept, the driving force behind the extermination of the Jews and the initiation of World War II.
       One highly sensitive NSC document entitled "Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests" was written in 1974 and was only declassified in late 1990. This document served as the foundation for our country's anti-natalist population philosophy. It is also known as National Security Study Memo 200 [NSSM 200], or "The Kissinger Report."
       The document states that "Development of a worldwide political and popular commitment to population stabilization is fundamental to any effective strategy. This requires the support and commitment of key LDC leaders. This will only take place if they clearly see the negative impact of unrestricted population growth and believe it is possible to deal with this question through governmental action."
       NSSM 200 goes on to suggest that United States food assistance might be made conditional depending on the LDC's population control performance. More significantly, the document states that United States agencies should be planning on the use of force in the future: "It is important in style as well as substance to avoid the appearance of coercion. ... mandatory programs may be needed and that we should be considering these possibilities now."
       In 1976, the Interagency Task Force on Population Policy for the Under Secretaries Committee of the NSC found that "In some cases, strong direction has involved incentives such as payment to acceptors for sterilization, or disincentives such as giving low priorities in the allocation of housing and schooling to those with larger families. Such direction is the sine-qua-non [essence] of an effective program."
       The Report asks some very interesting questions;

• "On what basis should such food resources then be provided? Would food be considered an instrument of national power? Will we be forced to make choices as to whom we can reasonably assist, and if so, should population efforts be a criterion for such assistance?"
• "Is the U.S. prepared to accept food rationing to help people who can't/won't control their population growth?"
• "Are mandatory population control measures appropriate for the U.S. and/or for others?"

       Architect of the Program: The UNFPA. For many years, the United States government has lavishly funded the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with tens of millions of our tax dollars. One of the main targets of UNFPA money is the People's Republic of China (PRC).
       The United States government is certainly not the only massive funder of UNFPA. For example, the Canadian government, through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), gave $9.1 million Canadian to UNFPA in 2000 despite its knowledge of the evidence of China's forced abortion program.[4]
       Although spokesmen for the organization have stridently disavowed responsibility for China's coercive programs, UNFPA's plan was laid out in many of its internal memos, including a January 15, 1985 briefing note entitled "The United Nations Population Fund and China;"[5]

• UNFPA contributed more than $100 million to China's population control programs;
•  UNFPA bought and custom-designed a $12 million IBM computer complex specifically to monitor the population program;
• UNFPA provided the technical expertise and personnel that trained thousands of Chinese population control officials;
• UNFPA presented China with the United Nations' award for the "most outstanding population control program;" and
• UNFPA only stated that the coercive programs should cease because they were causing the Chinese "negative image problems" - not because the programs were inhuman genocide, but because they had been caught in the act.

       When the horrors of the Chinese population control program were finally laid bare, U.S. funding to the UNFPA was cut off. Planned Parenthood, despite having the evidence of the Chinese atrocities before it, protested strongly and lobbied vigorously in a vain attempt to get UNFPA funds reestablished.
       Meanwhile, the parent organization of the UNFPA participated in the cover-up as well. The United Nations has gone on record as saying that "Although some have accused the family planning programme of employing coercive methods, the [Chinese] Government has never sanctioned the use of coercion."[6]
       Pro-abortion denials hold little credibility, especially in light of Chinese national and provincial laws demonstrating the coercive nature of the one-child policy;

• Central Committee Directive Number 7 of 1983 reads "All state officials, workers and employees, and urban residents, except for special cases which must be approved, may have only one child per couple."[7]
• Shanxi Province Communist Party Chief Zhang Boxing issued a directive on July 10, 1983 as follows: "Those women who have already given birth to one child must be fitted with IUDs, couples who already have two children must undergo sterilization of either the husband or the wife, and women pregnant outside the Plan must abort as soon as possible."[8]
• In April of 1992, the Chinese National People's Congress adopted Article 42 of a law that states: "When a wife terminates gestation as required by the family planning programme, her husband may not apply for a divorce within six months after the operation."
• In April 1988, Fujian Province adopted birth control regulations which stated that "Persons not meeting legal age requirements shall be prohibited from marrying or bearing children. ... Unplanned births shall be prohibited."
• In April 1990, Henan Province adopted "Rules and Regulations on Family Planning," which states in Article 11 that "Birth of the second child must be strictly controlled, and birth of the third child must be prohibited."[9]
• Finally, on December 29, 2001, the 25th session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress formally approved China's first law on population control and family planning, whose purpose is to further advance its one-child policy. Li Peng, Chairman of the legislature, said the law would "stabilize" China's family planning policy, which had been in place since 1980.[10]

       As background, the legislation that offended Planned Parenthood was enacted in 1985. The Kemp/Kasten Amendment, named after its chief sponsors, cut off "population assistance" money to "... any organization or program which, as determined by the President, supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization."
       Following passage of the Kemp/Kasten amendment and the repeal of a law that guaranteed funding of the UNFPA, the Reagan Administration found that UNFPA had violated the Kemp/Kasten amendment in China. UNFPA's funding was cut off, and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the action.
       "Family planners" saw this as a direct attack, and they reacted predictably: By pouring millions of dollars into another trademark ad/smear campaign filled with distortions and outright lies. The Chinese took leading population controllers on carefully structured tours of their country, and the anti-populationists obediently reported to the public that they personally saw no forced abortions (as if the Chinese would lead them to a clinic filled with screaming women enduring forced third-trimester abortions)! Werner Fornos, head of the Population Institute, insisted that 'disincentives' were used in China, but never 'coercion.'
       The UNFPA itself operates family planning programs in 32 counties, or county-level municipalities, throughout China. In fact, its offices are often co-located with local Family Planning Offices. Therefore, there is no possible way that UNFPA cannot know about the draconian forced-abortion program in China. Yet it claims that Chinese "women are free to voluntarily select the timing and spacing of their pregnancies;" that there are no family planning targets or quotas; that abortion is not promoted in China as a method of family planning; and, finally, that coercion does not exist![11]
       In 1986, Rafael Salas, UNFPA's then-Executive Director, said that "Each country has its view of what is free, a free choice. If you refer to the case of China, I am very sure that the Chinese themselves will say that within their cultural norms, they are not at all coercive. Maybe from Western standards, these might not be totally acceptable, but then each country must determine that for themselves."[12]
       In 1989, UNFPA's Executive Director Nafis Sadik claimed on CBS's "Nightwatch" television program that the UNFPA "does not support abortion programs anywhere in the world," and is "not supporting coercion in any form." She also continued to insist that China's population control policies are "purely voluntary."[13]
       Twelve years later, Sadik was still in denial despite a mountain of evidence contradicting her stubbornly-held beliefs. She said that "China has every reason to feel proud of and pleased with its remarkable achievements made in its family planning policy and control of its population growth over the past 10 years. Now the country could offer its experiences and special experts to help other countries."[14]

       Continuing the Program. After hearing repeated denials of wrongdoing, that International Spy and Enemy of the People Steven Mosher decided to check the current situation in China. Despite numerous bureaucratic obstacles thrown in his path, he managed to visit several rural villages for four days in June of 1987. Upon his return, he published articles showing that forced abortions and sterilizations were still taking place in China. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), after reviewing the UNFPA "family planning" program, agreed that China's family planning program "remains systematically coercive."[15]
       However, the pro-aborts apparently still couldn't care less about forced abortions. For example, virulently pro-abortion senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii attempted to reinstate funding for UNFPA, but was rebuffed by the Senate Appropriations Committee, 14 to 11, on December 3, 1987.
       As final proof of China's program of forced baby-killing, the United States House of Representatives on December 10, 1987, adopted a resolution sponsored by Congressman Chris Smith that "... strongly condemns the continued violations of human rights by the Government of the People's Republic of China, including the one-child-per-family policy adopted in 1979 that relies on coercion, economic penalties, and forced abortions, often late in pregnancy ..."
       Interestingly, the Chinese Family Planning Association - which implements the coercive program in China - is an affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). Cash grants from IPPF to the Chinese birth control program rose tremendously about the time the Chinese coercive population control program was publicized: From $5,600 in 1982 to $750,000 in 1985, a 134-fold increase in just three years![16] Significantly, at about this time, the IPPF changed its logo from a two-parent/two child design to a two-parent/one child design.

Go to Next Page: Involuntary Contraception and Early Abortions in the PRC

Return to China's Forced Abortion Program Table of Contents

Footnotes for "The Origins of the Chinese Population Control Program"

[1] Steven W. Mosher. Broken Earth: The Rural Chinese [New York: The Free Press, 1983]. Order from: Life Issues Bookshelf, Sun Life, Thaxton, Virginia 24174, telephone: (703) 586-4898. Mr. Mosher, a Chinese-American scholar who was denied his Ph.D. because he revealed details of China's forced-abortion policy, outlines various Chinese government policies and their impacts on the common Chinese worker and rural dweller. Chapter 9 of his book, "Birth Control: A Grim Game of Numbers," deals with China's forced-abortion and one-child policy, which leads also to female infanticide when the first baby is a girl. Chan Muhua's quote is on page 224.

[2] Qian Xinzhong, Minister in Charge of the State Family Planning Commission. "China's Population Policy: Theory and Methods." Studies in Family Planning. December 1983, Part I, pages 295 to 301.

[3] Selig Newbardt, M.D., and Harold Schulman, M.D. Techniques of Abortion [Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1977] (Second Edition), page 9.

[4] "Canada Donates $9 Million to UNFPA - Funders of China's One-Child Policy." LifeSite Daily News at http://www.lifesite.net, May 7, 2001.

[5] Steven W. Mosher. "Thinking Clear: Forced Abortions and Infanticide in Communist China." Human Life Review, Summer 1985, pages 7 to 34. Page 33, footnote 9.

[6] United Nations. Abortion Policies: A Global Review [New York: United Nations, 1992]. Volume 1, page 85.

[7] "China's Population Policy is Proving to Be Effective." Beijing Review (English Edition), November 6-12, 1989, pages 42 to 44.

[8] "The Week." National Review, May 27, 1988, page 15.

[9] "Canada Donates $9 Million to UNFPA - Funders of China's One-Child Policy." LifeSite Daily News at http://www.lifesite.net, May 7, 2001.

[10] "China Passes First Law Codifying 1-Child Policy." The Washington Times, December 30, 2001.

[11] "China: Background Information." United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Web site at http://www.unfpa.org/regions/apd/countries/china.htm; "UNFPA's Country Program in China: Providing Quality Care, Protecting Human Rights." UNFPA, August 10, 2001. For a summary of UNFPA's most recent deceptions, see Population Research Institute (PRI) Weekly Briefing, "UNFPA Supports Coercive Family Planning - Including Forced Abortion - in China (and PRI Has the Evidence to Prove It)" [Volume 3, Number 25], October 4, 2001.

[12] "An Uncompromising Position: China, the UNFPA and U.S. Population Policy." Undated Zero Population Growth Backgrounder.

[13] "Forced Abortion, Infanticide Reported in Tibet." The Wanderer, April 6, 1989, page 2.

[14] Nafis Sadik, former Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), quoted by China's official news agency Xinhua on April, 11, 1991. Also described in "Canada Donates $9 Million to UNFPA - Funders of China's One-Child Policy." LifeSite Daily News, May 7, 2001.

[15] Richard Glasow, Ph.D. "Pro-Aborts Work Overtime to Break RU-486 'Quarantine.'" National Right to Life News, November 30, 1989, pages 6 and 11.

[16] B. Nossiter. "Population Prizes from U.N. Assailed." New York Times, July 24, 1983.