Stop Forced Abortion! An Open Letter to Presidents Xi and Obama

Dear Presidents Xi and Obama,

As you meet at Sunnylands today, we urge you to discuss ending the coercive enforcement of China’s One Child Policy.  This brutal policy causes more violence against women and girls than any other official policy on earth, and any official policy in the history of the world.  It is state-sponsored violence against women.  We now have 200,000 signatures from 70 nations on our petitions against gendercide and forced abortion in China.  This number continues to grow as people all over the world learn the truth about China’s barbaric population control program.

Just this year, there has been much suffering caused by the One Child Policy.  We are aware that the cases that make it to the West are just the tip of the iceburg.  For every family that posts their experience of heartbreak on the internet, there are thousands or millions that suffer silently. Every month has brought a fresh atrocity:

• On January 14, 2013, Wang Xia, the Chair of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, stated that China “must unwaveringly adhere to the One Child Policy as a national policy to stabilize the low birth rate as the primary task.”
• On February 4, 2013, Family Planning Officials got into an argument with a couple who had three children.  In the tussle that followed, these Officials ran over the couple’s thirteen month old baby with their car, killing him.  See, “Father’s Interview about baby crushed to death during One Child Policy enforcement confirms violent coercion.”

• On March 14, 2013, it was reported that Yang Yuzhi hung herself in the Family Planning Office of Beizhanglou Village, Taikang County, Henan Province.  Forcibly sterilized twice, she had for years suffered chronic pain from these traumatic procedures.  Her medication drained the family finances, so she regularly petitioned the Family Planning Office for compensation, to no avail.  Yang’s death also emphasizes the absence of the rule of law in China.  She died while petitioning for justice.  See, “Woman’s death by hanging at Family Planning Office – Suicide or Something Else?

• On March 19, 2013, in Dabancheng Village, Hubei Province, a mother of two died after a forced sterilization, which took place against a doctor’s orders.  

• Also in March, the Health Ministry reported that since the Chinese Communist Party started implementing coercive population control measure, doctors have performed 336 million abortions, 196 million sterilizations, and 403 millionn insertions of intrauterine devices.

• On April 24, 2013, Congressman Chris Smith and Women’s Rights Without Frontiers attempted to deliver to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC 200,000 signatures on petitions against forced abortion and gendercide in China.  The Embassy would not open its door to accept the signatures, but rather refused them.  

• On April 25, 2013, the relatives of blind forced abortion opponent Chen Guangcheng received death threats.  Chen’s nephew, Chen Kegui, had acute appendicitis, for which he was not allowed out of the prison for possible surgery.  Kegui had been detained in 2012 for defending himself with a kitchen knife when government thugs attacked him and his family upon the discovery that Chen Guangcheng had escaped.  

• On May 15, 2013, in Xinyi City, Jiangsu Province, more than 20 Family Planning Officials beat a farmer almost to death, because he and his wife have three children.  Zhang Futao suffered severe head injuries and is in critical condition from the beating.  According to the family, he has a fractured skull and a brain hemorrhage. His three children are ages 12, 6 and 4.  See, “Family Planning Officials Fracture Skull of Family of Three."

• On May 25, 2013, a woman from Yuyue Town, Hubei Province, died after a forced abortion.  She was six months’ pregnant.

• On May 29, 2013, it was reported that a 22 year old woman flushed her newborn baby boy down a toilet.  We believe that this desperate act was not unrelated to the fact that she was 22 years old, unmarried, and without a birth permit.  

• On June 3, 2013, the China Daily reported that a city in central China is considering the implementation of a new law that would fine unwed mothers up to three times their annual income.  This law would likely increase the incidence of forced abortions for those women who could not afford to pay such a steep fine on an emergency basis. 

President Jinping, you are in a unique position to stop this horrendous violence against women.  May the end of the One Child Policy be your enduring legacy to the Chinese people.

President Obama, you are a Nobel Peace Prize winner.  Please live up to your acceptance of this award urging the end of violence against women through coercive family planning in China.

Sincerely,

Brittany Snyder & care2.com