We at Birth Pangs believe strongly in reproductive liberty. Detractors would like to say that is code for “abortions are great everyone should have one.”
However, that is not the case. And that is why with heavy hearts we report on this story from China
For a young woman from a broken family, Jin couldn’t believe her good luck. But one evening, a knock came to the door – and all of that shattered in an instant.
Ten local family planning officials burst into her home, dragged her off and subjected Jin to a brutal, forced abortion.
She was in her ninth month.
Her crime? She had conceived her child five months before she and Yang were married, an illegal act in China.
The events that occurred seven years ago this week constitute a nightmare from which Jin has never recovered, although she and Yang have struggled for justice every day.
While we rally strongly around women who make the choice to have an abortion, we cannot countenance acts of forced abortion. Choice means just that, the choice to carry a pregnancy to term or not. Marital status notwithstanding.
Our thoughts are with this young couple and we wish them luck in pursuing justice.
What a terrible story, sad and outrageous both.
Where women are “forced” to make either choice, there is tyranny. There is also frequently demographic stupidity, as we know from the effects of China’s one-child policy (an underpopulation of women, for one thing).
Forced abortion, just like forced pregnancy, is abhorrent.
Funny how the fetus fetishists can see one end of this argument and not the other.
That’s why we call ourselves ‘pro-choice’.
What skdadl and fern said.
Its not about being “for” or “against” abortion, but for the ability of a woman to make the choice – either way – to control her body.
What the other commenters said.
The situation in this story is an outrage, because it’s about taking away a woman’s right to choose (to choose pregnancy, to choose abortion, to choose birth control, or whatever). That is what the pro-choice movement is about: choice. Anything less than complete freedom to choose one’s own reproductive destiny, whatever that may be, is unacceptable.