Gong Qifeng was seven months pregnant with her second son when she was pinned onto a hospital table in Hunan, China, and forcibly aborted as she begged for mercy. The dead baby was born after 35 hours of agony. “It has become a mental pain. I feel like a walking corpse,” Gong told AP last month.
Liu Xinwen told Sky News how a group of 20 officials burst into her home at 4am. Her husband was restrained as she was taken to a Weifang City hospital and injected with abortion-inducing drugs. Photos of their dead baby in a bucket spread online. And renowned Chinese film director Zhang Yimou and his wife Chen Ting were fined more than $1 million for having unauthorised children.
These recently exposed cases have renewed focus on the barbarism of China’s population control policy. But in the global commentary condemning these human rights violations, the complicity of the West – including Australia – has been overlooked. Australia has aided and abetted China’s one-child policy, through funds, attempts to ban victims from applying for asylum and forcible deportations of pregnant Chinese women. We have blood on our hands.
We can’t pretend that we didn’t know what would happen to the women we sent back. There was a growing body of expert documentation, including first-hand testimony. A Chinese gynaecologist and Christian forced to perform abortions, “Dr Wong,” was refused asylum but won an appeal on religious freedom grounds. Read more here.
As published on ABC Religion and Ethics Feb 3 2014
