China’s family planning agency sparked a public outcry recently when some of its priorities for 2022 were interpreted as an intrusive move toward preventing unmarried pregnant women from having abortions. In its announcement, the China Family Planning Association (CFPA) said it would carry out measures such as an “anti-abortion campaign” among young unmarried couples to prevent unwanted pregnancies and abortions, as it strove toward improving China’s reproductive health.
The CFPA furthered explained to the media that this anti-abortion effort among adolescents is based on years of its youth campaign work in the area of sex education. It said it wanted to help teenagers understand that prevention is key and that unintended pregnancies and abortions — especially risky abortions — is best avoided.
China is not alone in pursuing such family planning goals. According to the World Health Organization, about 55 million abortions are performed globally every year. In 2017, 9.62 million are reported in China, accounting for 17.4% of abortions globally. The actual number could be as high as 13 million considering unreported abortions carried out by private hospitals and underground clinics.
In statistical terms, China has one of the highest induced abortions and repeat abortions rates internationally. Among those recipients of induced abortions, 47.5% are women under 25, 49.8% are unmarried, and 55.9% receive more than two induced abortions. It’s no exaggeration to say that the high rates of abortions are a serious risk to Chinese women’s health. Hence, it is noteworthy that the CFPA works toward helping women reduce unplanned pregnancies.
Yet there is a cultural perspective to read into this.
Chinese characteristics
First, it is not a secret that in some regions, some Chinese parents still prefer sons to daughters. China’s gender imbalance at birth peaked in 2004 at 121 males to 100 females. In total, China has over 30 million bachelors who may have difficulties finding brides especially in rural areas of northern provinces, and these are exactly the places where induced abortions are prominent once female fetal gender is identified.
Second, attitudes towards sex are becoming more open in China. Premarital sexual behaviors are common. According to a sample survey of 30 provinces published in 2010, about 22.4% of single men and women aged 15 to 24 were sexually active, and about 19% of sexually active unmarried women had an abortion. The lack of contraceptive measures and knowledge of contraception among many adolescent females has also contributed to the increase in unwanted pregnancies.
Chinese society today is very tolerant of abortion, especially during the four decades when its family planning policy was strictly enforced. In the mindset of most Chinese, life only begins when a baby is born. This mindset has contributed to the increase of induced abortion.
Still, there are those in China who opposed abortions on the grounds that it can be damaging to women’s fertility. This argument is gaining ground as China is facing a fast-decreasing reproductive rate.
To sum up, many in China view abortion from utilitarian motivations, and not from a rights perspective, such as the reproductive rights of women or the birth rights of the fetus.
Abortion in the U.S.
Since the 1960s and 1970s, most Western countries passed legislation on abortion amid a period known as the “sexual revolution” which saw a movement to promote women’s rights.
In the United States, there are two camps: the “pro-choice” camp that supports women’s rights to choose whether or not to terminate abortion, and the “anti-abortion” camp that emphasizes the rights of both the mother and the unborn child.
The pro-abortion camp formally gained legal ground from the Roe v. Wade decision when the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 22, 1973, ruled (7–2) that unduly restrictive state regulation of abortion is unconstitutional.
Since the historic Supreme Court ruling in 1973, there have been about 15 million abortions every year, meaning one-fifth of pregnant women in the U.S. would terminate their pregnancy. Of those pregnant, about 1 million are between 15 to 19 years of age, and about 30,000 are below 15. More than half of teenage pregnancies end up in induced abortions.
The issue of abortion rights continues to be a divisive topic in U.S. society till today, with conservatives fighting for the fetus’s right to life versus liberals who are for a woman's autonomy over her own body. But there are some who believe that there is no conflict between the two at all.
American philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson, invited the readers to a thought experiment in “A Defense of Abortion.”
You wake up in the morning and find yourself back-to-back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist’s circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.
It is a parody of pregnancy in this thought experiment, in which Thomson argues that abortion does not violate the fetus’s legitimate right to life, but merely deprives the fetus of the non-consensual use of the pregnant woman’s body and life-supporting functions, to which it has no right. Thus, by choosing to terminate her pregnancy, Thomson concludes that a pregnant woman does not normally violate the fetus’s right to life, but merely withdraws its use of her own body, which usually causes the fetus to die.
Rights issues aside, there has been an unexpected social consequence since the legislation of abortion in the United States: the decline of the crime rate in American society. Economist Steven D. Levitt from the Chicago University, after rigorous econometric analysis, connected the 1973 Supreme Court ruling to the sudden decline of 40% violent crimes in the early 1990s. Single mothers who wanted an abortion were usually unprepared for kids and tend to live in less desirable economic conditions, which means if the child was born, there is higher possibility of them falling into poverty or violence.
Let’s return to the argument that there is no contradiction on the fetus right to life and women’s reproductive rights. In that case, shouldn’t we listen to more voices of women? After all, it is women that bear the fetus during pregnancy and the upbringing responsibilities after birth. Policies are not right if they brush aside rights and only focus on utility. On the surface it may reach its goal, but there are always social costs that might be hidden in the early days, yet ultimately borne by all individuals in our society.
Li Jingkui is professor in the school of economics at Zhejiang Gongshang University.
Edited by Sarah Liang
Contact editor Bertand Teo (bertrandteo@caixin.com)
Get our weekly free Must-Read newsletter.
