China pledges to combat sex-selection abortions
August 11, 2011
Amid reports that 130 boys are born for every 100 girls in some Chinese provinces, Communist officials are pledging to crack down on sex-selection abortions. The government’s new “Outline for the Development of Chinese Children (2011-2020)” calls for a prohibition of the use of “ultrasonic techniques to conduct non-medical sex determination.”
Nationwide, 119 boys are born for every 100 girls. Joseph Meaney of Human Life International explained in an interview with Vatican Radio that “only male descendants are allowed to do funerary rites in some of the traditional religions in China.”
“The carrying on of the family name--which is very important--which only passes through the son, the idea that the daughter is lost when she gets married … all these things exacerbate the problem, but certainly the one-child policy has made China a uniquely susceptible country to sex-selection abortion.”
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Further information:
- China vows to fight sex-selection abortion (Vatican Radio)
- China to harshly crack down on non-medical sex-selective abortion (Xinhua)
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