Editor’s note: The original version of this article was published by Patheos.com. Click here to read it.
Nearly everybody knows the People’s Republic of China put an end to its one-child policy. The Church can indeed rejoice because China’s families are now allowed two children. Many Chinese women will avoid the trauma and sorrow of forced abortions and sterilizations (at least for a little while longer) and many more unborn Chinese babies will live. But if you think China’s communist government is rethinking the sacredness and dignity of human life, you’d be wrong.
Imagine population control workers monitoring your town for illegal third pregnancies. Imagine, ladies, that you discover you’re pregnant with your third child. Overjoyed with God’s new blessing you take a moment to reflect and smile, only to frown the next. Will a family member or neighbor report your pregnancy to the population control monitors? How long can you hide your pregnancy? How long can you protect your unborn child from abortion’s deathly grip? What about the possibility of your own forced sterilization?
Stop for a minute and think about how this is the reality for women in China no matter their religion nor economic status. Each day nearly 500 Chinese women commit suicide. The correlation between grief and death are unquestionable. And it all starts with government policies deeming life valuable only when commissioned according to necessity. China’s new two-child policy won’t fix this lack of respect for the sacredness of humanity. The abuses can only get worse, according to one social scientist.
“We have to understand why the Chinese government is relaxing the one-child policy,” said Steven Mosher, President of the Population Research Institute, during an intense lecture addressing Cleveland Right to Life’s annual Bringing America Back to Life Convention. Mosher is a former Atheist and advocate of population control. While researching in China’s abortion operating rooms, Mosher says he found God because he saw “absolutes evil” and “crimes against humanity.” If evil exists, then he knew good must exist too.
Compassion for women and the unborn certainly isn’t Chinese President Xi Jinping’s chief motivator. “It’s not because he hates abortion or has pangs of guilt for sterilizing women,” explained Mosher. “China is growing old before it grows rich.”
Mosher determined that China’s population will peak in 2025 and then begin to fall. For Chinese women, a shrinking workforce could mean different abuses. “If the birth rate does not go up, if the labor force continues to shrink, if China’s population continues to rapidly age, the Chinese government won’t stop with encouraging couples to have a second child,” said Mosher. Having a second, or third pregnancy could become mandatory, as could women’s forced insemination.
Comparing the Chinese government’s attitude towards life to a manufacturer mentality, Mosher said they “will produce children one way or another in the same way it produces tanks, and planes, and power plants.”
“I’m absolutely opposed to abortion,” Mosher confessed. “But having the dictator of a country impose that policy in the name of increasing the birth rate, even so, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”
“What needs to happen in China, of course, is for the planned birth policy to be abandoned all-together,” he continued
The possibility of forcible euthanasia policies also concerns the social science researcher as China’s population ages rapidly. Mosher said “the over-60 population is exploding” and the Chinese government could easily decide its retired citizens are “an undue burden on the economy.”
Orphanages will continue to fill with disabled children and abandoned baby girls, Mosher predicted during his lecture. That’s because the Chinese government wants to “breed better Chinese men and better Chinese women.”
China’s population is increasingly made up of males because of legal sex-selection abortions. Because of the gender disparities in birth ratios, kidnapping and sex trafficking from neighboring countries is another consequence of population control. “There are now 25 million young men in China who cannot find brides, who will never be able to marry because their brides no longer are living. Their brides have been killed,” Mosher said.
Noting that China’s abuses against women and children all started with population control policies, Mosher concluded, “The one-child policy in China may be over, but the two-child policy will still mean forced abortions of second and third children, it may mean forced pregnancy in years to come, and it will certainly mean other abuses.”
Ladies and gentlemen, when Faith and I launched this blog a couple of months ago, we promised to tackle the tough topics. Fed up with shallow theology and self-absorbed topical discussions pervasive in many churches and Bible studies, we asked you to delve with us into challenging cultural issues affecting the Church.
Perhaps your heart is heavy after reading about China’s disregard for the dignity of life. Maybe you’re frustrated because you don’t know how to help fix the problems. We understand these feelings, too. Please consider joining us in prayer for China’s underground ministers and lay leaders who witness these “crimes against humanity” on a daily basis.
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