13 million abortions every year in China

by Amitjha | July 29, 2009 at 10:12 pm

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Any news from china always attracts attention because of one important reason and that is the size, number or quantity. Even in this case, where a report figures out the situation of abortion in china, it is the number that matters most.According to reports nearly 1.3 million cases are registered in China.

China is fighting to stabilize it population by the end of 2030, well this abortion will help in doing that or not it is very tough to guess but if we see future it is not the new child born but the old age that is going to be a big demographic issue issue

China performs about 13 million abortions every year, mostly for single young women who experts say know little about contraception,

state media said on Thursday in a rare disclosure of sensitive family planning statistics.

The China Daily newspaper said the real number of abortions is believed to be even higher since the 13 million accounts for procedures in hospitals but many more are known to be carried out in unregistered rural clinics. Also, about 10 million abortion pills are sold every year in China, the paper said.

It quoted Wu Shangchun, a government official with the National Population and Family Planning Commission, as saying that nearly half of the women seeking abortions in China had used no form of contraception.

China imposed strict birth controls in the 1970s, limiting most couples to just one child. Sterilization and the use of intrauterine devices, or IUDs, for women are widely promoted - and subsidized - forms of contraception for married women. However, the policy tends to overlook the contraception needs of unmarried women even as attitudes toward casual sex have dramatically liberalized.

The report said around 62 percent of the women undergoing abortions were single and aged between 20 and 29 years old.

It called the widespread use of abortions ``an unfortunate situation'' but did not directly say whether abortions were on the rise. No year to year statistics were given.

Wu told the paper that reducing the number of abortions was a tough challenge facing the country.

Peking University professor, Li Ying, was quoted as saying that sex education needed to be improved at the university level and that Chinese parents also needed to teach their kids more about sex.

The government says its family planning controls since the 1970s - including contraception, sterilization and abortion procedures - have prevented an additional 400 million births in the world's most populous country of 1.3 billion.

About 1.2 million women have abortions each year in the United States, which has a population of just more than 300 million people.

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duo

at 23:15 on July 29th, 2009

Someone should open a prophylactic factory over there or ship some birth control pills. Offer out-patient vasectomies and tubal ligations. Haven't either of those reached China yet? Seems like they are using abortions as a form of birth control to have such a high rate. What about that "morning after" pill? Good gracious! This is beyond unnecessary in the 21st century.

Amitjha

at 00:32 on July 30th, 2009

Well Chinese sexual behavior and preferences are under study since last decade, but they haven't reached to any conclusion yet. Only factor that is forcing the abortion is growing economic pressure.

Uwe Paschen

at 01:22 on July 30th, 2009

Amit we are over populated and China as well as India and most African Countries are running strait into a population disaster.

Sexual preferences have nothing to do with any of this. Animal produce young and Humans are animals.

The problem is we are now almost 7 billions and need to get back down to 5 billion or even lower.

Amitjha

at 03:12 on July 30th, 2009

Thanks Paschen, what is the optimum level of population is a controversial debate.Tech driven society redraws this limit based on progress made in technology.But this geometrical growth need to be stoped, hope nature will come up with solution.This integrated world, which we cherish, is going to be a problem, we have seen it in case of recent flu epedemic.

The mass scale migration and population shift will open another frontier of socio-cultural war which will help in control.But disaster led control will be momentry in nature, the outburst after the second world war is the perfect example.

J2B (not verified)

at 02:32 on July 30th, 2009

I think this is part of the "one-child-per-family" problem but I believe recently they will now allow 2 children. I guess in someway like in India too, many families want the first born to a male.

How many female children are killed in India?

Pakistan will experience a population explosion in the coming years reaching around 350 million.

I suppose in the end nature will take over, cause some terrible disease and wipe out a couple of billion people unless some of us start moving to another planet soon!

Amitjha

at 03:15 on July 30th, 2009

J2B, the variables that operate in demographic transition can be many, whether it is social or economic, ultimately the number that matters.Can we justify the 1.3 million abortion?

kotawinters

at 03:37 on July 30th, 2009

For the many years they have been practicing abortion, it has become ingrained in their culture as acceptable. What good is controlling population is they take the lives of even their own produce?

I cannot imagine now how they could love their children if abortion is a habit. It is not even an issue of understanding a man imprisoned in poverty.

What do their churches say to this issue?

It is like abortion to them is merely going to the bathroom and pee.

Amitjha

at 04:30 on July 30th, 2009

well what Chinese think about abortion and what their religious system says about it is not important.The issue is if anyone can control it before hand what is the need of abortion.

Babel-Fish

at 06:41 on July 30th, 2009

What Churches its hard to find one in China, though Hong Kong has many. China is a communist country where religion is not allowed to approach government on such issues. The media is controlled by the state so religious freedom of speech is out.

China does not look at abortion as you do a child is not alive until its born. The problem with population the more it increases the more births. In fact if China did not control its births the population there would be astounding they would not have the agricultural land to feed all of the people. One a population grows beyond a countries food supply.then people start to starve and in my opinion would amount to millions more than the life lost through abortion. As nearly every baby born become part of a breeding pair within twenty years or so a couple can have an average of eight kids or more during their life time.

What we have to consider is that many of those that would die due to over population would be children of whom would know of their suffering up to the point of death.

What would be your opinion I wonder if you lived in a society that had seen the problem of over population in the future and the need to take some form of action. Would your religious belief be over rid by the fact that the aborted baby would not suffer, but young babies and children in the future would suffer the pains of dying through hunger.

I personally would vote for birth control and abortion though I hate to see abortion as being a option but some times there is no other choice.

This of course would be a Solomon's choice, but of course the Chinese government see it as a solution to a big problem seen in their countries future.

Lu Galasso

at 06:29 on July 31st, 2009

Abortion is a very hard topic to discuss because there are so many "what if's" and so many "exceptions". For years now I have tried to come up with a stance on what I believe is right and when I think I have finally decided my side, something else always comes up. So I will say one thing that I really do believe. I do not believe that abortion should be used as birth control. I think the first step is to educate. Show videos of women giving birth (really graphic ones!) As inappropriate as that may seem it will scare teens and young adults into either not having sex, or making sure that they are safe in the first place.

You can tell teens/young adults consequences and tell them over and over again not to do it, but they are likely to do it anyways. In a country as overpopulated as China, methods of birth control such as the pill and condoms should be given out free and be easily accessible to everyone.

That being said, in a place like China where they do have rules about how many children a family is allowed etc, and where, as previously mentioned, most people want boys, I would rather see someone abort their child in the early stages of pregnancy than see it not wanted, and end up in foster care, left to die in a dumpster or grow up knowing it was not wanted, because in both cases a life is being ruined.

But like I said, this is a hard thing to discuss.

Lu Galasso