Good for China, Good for the World?
Last month, the People’s Republic of China celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of its brutal and inhumane one-child policy. Human rights groups have documented the widespread abuses of forced abortions and sterilizations, and in several provinces authorities have even been known to monitor women’s menstrual cycles and contraceptive use.
Yet, as the Copenhagen conference on climate change has captured much of the world’s attention these last few weeks, we have heard increasing and increasingly troubling calls for Chinese-style population control measures to be adopted by the rest of the world.
In fact, human rights groups and scholars have been calling attention to the widespread suffering of Chinese women for at least two decades. Despite such revelations, the Obama administration asked for $50 million to fund the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the organization whose cooperation in this monstrous policy earned its defunding by the Bush administration. Last weekend’s massive omnibus spending bill actually added an additional $5 million for the UNFPA, for a total of $55 million, and another $648.5 million for international “family planning” programs.
