We've often talked about China's one child policy before on this blog. We have been interested in its unintended effects, its economic impact and whether liberalisation of parts of the policy will come too late to change decades of cultural preference for small families ingrained by propaganda. The interest comes from the fact that this policy is humanity's largest attempt to consciously change the demographic future through coercion. It is a lesson in where other countries may end up if the focus on overpopulation becomes too fixed and blinkered (and we've mentioned before that China has no qualms about lecturing others about the “success” of its policy). However, it is only when you get details of a particular human story that you can appreciate the true barbarity of this evil regime's evil policy. We've mentioned such stories before.
And a couple of days ago in our local rag, there was another story from the sharp end of the one child policy. This story concerns a married couple who each have one child with their previous spouses (it is unclear if the previous marriages ended due to divorce or death). According to the regulations set down by the Guizhou province where the woman in question, Qin Yi, works as a teacher, the couple are not allowed to have their own child. In the eyes of the province’s education bureau and the health and planning commission, their “one child” quota has been filled in their previous marriages. Thus, when it found out that Qin was five months pregnant, the commission ordered that she have an abortion by the end of the month. At five months, the baby that Qin is carrying, according to the babycentre website:

“…weighs about 360g and is about 27cm long. [The] baby's eyebrows and eyelids are fully developed, and he can now blink.” By the end of the month when the abortion is due, Qin’s baby will be at the stage of development that he or she:

“…weighs a little more than 500g and measures about 29cm from crown to heel. His hearing is established and around now he may be able to make out a distorted version of your voice, the beating of your heart and your stomach rumblings.” I wonder if the baby will be able to hear Qin’s sobs as she goes to the local health and planning commission to have her baby killed.
Qin and her husband, Meng Shaoping, have argued that they applied for permission to have the baby in Huangshan city in Anhui province, where Qin’s residency is registered.  Anhui province:

“…allows couples to have a child if they don't have more than two children from previous marriages, whereas Guizhou only lets a couple have a child if there is just one previous child.” The authority is not accepting that this permission is valid and is investigating whether she transferred her residency to Anhui earlier this year in order to gain permission to give birth. If Qin fails to have an abortion, then she will lose her job. As the Associated Press notes:

“The case illustrates how different areas have different family planning regulations and how unyielding China's birth limits continue to be despite a recent loosening in the 35-year-old policy to allow more couples to have two children.

Different areas draw up their own family planning rules that fit into a national policy. In late 2013, China's leadership announced it would allow two children for families in which one parent is an only child, and different provinces and cities have implemented the change at different paces.” I would add it also illustrates the reality of the one child policy. It affects real parents leaving them with horrific claytons choices: abort your child or lose your job. It affects those in authority who carry out these horrific regulations and face the deadening impact of the banality of evil upon their consciences every day. And of course, it most profoundly affects real human beings, foetus ripped from their mothers’ wombs in the name of population control, economic growth and state control over every aspect of their subjects’ lives: including the time before they are born.