Shanghaiist.com posted the picture above with the following:
“Speaking from a local hospital in her home county of Zhenping, Feng Jianmei said she had been forced to have the procedure by local family planning bureau officials after she failed to pay a 40,000 yuan fine for an “excess birth” under China’s draconian population control policies.”
For those of us in the west, this image is enough to cause a pit to open in our stomach. However, I’m not sure that the photo is what Shanghaiist.com says it is. I find it hard to believe that the “bureau” would abort a child and then lay it next to the mother. I’m not saying it can’t happen, I simply find it odd. The baby is suggested to be just 28 weeks , but he actually looks full term.
The photo does do one thing. It serves as a metaphor, perhaps the best image of China’s violence against women. The policy of “one child” is apparently relaxed if a girl is first-born. The couple are then granted some leeway to have another child. But three is unacceptable and strictly enforced.
The Guardian profiled a story last October when Ma Jihong, when family planning officials a in Lijin, Shandong province “arrived at her home and ordered her to go to hospital with them.” Several hours later, Ma was dead.
According to the story, “The Lijin government statement said Ma’s breathing and heartbeat appeared to stop suddenly as doctors prepared to inject her with a drug to induce labour. It said the hospital spent two hours trying to save her.”
Violence against women, and make no mistake, this is violence, is accepted around the world. Our economic policies need to reflect our disdain for this kind of treatment. Last year, the U.S. imported $400 BILLION from China to the U.S. We export just $100 billion. The trade deficit is enough to change our policies. Violence against women should be our reason for doing it.
We need more women to run for office. We need more women to vote for women running for office. Women will change the world.