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China's Forced Abortion Policy and the U.N.; Does Anyone Have More Information?
Topic Started: Nov 7 2005, 05:12 AM (291 Views)
QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
The attached editorial, from the WSJ, is obviously a screed. But I'd be interested in hearing the opposing viewpoint. Does anyone have more information?

--------------

Population Politics
November 7, 2005; Page A20

Samuel Alito isn't the only nominee under attack by liberals for his record on abortion. So is Ellen Sauerbrey, President Bush's choice to be Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

To be precise, Ms. Sauerbrey is under fire for supporting Mr. Bush's priorities at the United Nations, where the former Maryland legislator and gubernatorial candidate has spent four years as U.S. envoy to the Commission on the Status of Women. Among her alleged sins is that she supports the administration's decision to withhold $34 million from the U.N. Population Fund because some of the agency's contributions go to China's appalling forced-abortion policy.

The Population Fund is one of the principal cheerleaders of China's one-child policy, which has been enforced through fines, imprisonment, forced abortion, sterilizations and even, human-rights groups charge, infanticide. Several weeks ago Mr. Bush invoked a 20-year-old policy -- known as the Kemp-Kasten Amendment -- which prohibits federal funding of "any organization or program which supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization."

One would think that women's organizations would applaud this decision -- and the appointment of an American woman who champions it. Mandatory limitations on family size and involuntary sterilizations hardly represent "reproductive freedom" or "a woman's right to choose." Instead, groups such as Planned Parenthood have protested that Mr. Bush is denying women access to reproductive health and family planning services. Planned Parenthood is also attacking Ms. Sauerbrey.

China insists that coercion is a thing of the past. But the senior China specialist at the U.S. Census Bureau told Congress in December that, "The evidence is clear that the one-child policy is still basic national policy, that it remains coercive and violative of human rights." Amnesty International continues to document abortions, sterilizations and infanticide inside rural hospitals. China also uses fines and "social compensation" penalties of up to four years of salary to punish one-child violators.

There are an estimated 40 million girls demographically missing in China as a result of its one-child policy. The Population Research Institute reports that the sex ratio of 117 boys to 100 girls is so out of balance that the Chinese government has initiated emergency programs to teach parents about the value of girls.

Representative Carolyn Maloney (D., N.Y.) has introduced legislation to release taxpayer funds for the Population Fund and give recipients a blank check on how to spend it. But it is Ms. Maloney and her allies who should be forced to defend the Population Fund's practices, especially its support for China's birth-control policy. The Fund has publicly praised the one-child policy as "the most successful family planning (sic) policy ever developed," and it once gave the Chinese government an award for the "effectiveness" of its population control.

American elites share the blame for this and other coercive population programs by instructing foreign leaders with the false Malthusian premise that people constrain economic progress. The notion of a "population bomb," so universally accepted in the 1960s and 1970s, has been thoroughly discredited.

The birth rate in developing countries like Mexico and India has plummeted to just over three children per couple today from about six in 1950. The major explanation for smaller family sizes, longer life expectancy, income gains and improved health and nutrition has been economic growth, not condom distribution or lower birth rates. Population stabilization is not a cause, but rather a consequence, of growth and prosperity. The Reagan administration had it right when it first stopped financing the Population Fund and declared that "capitalism is by far the best contraceptive."

As for Ms. Sauerbrey, her opponents' claims that she is a "crony" (for having run Mr. Bush's 2000 election campaign in Maryland) and "unqualified" are a smokescreen for their real gripe about the Bush Administration's decision to withhold money from the Population Fund. California Democrat Barbara Boxer recently managed to get a vote on Ms. Sauerbrey delayed in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where pro-choice Republican Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island is being lobbied hard to vote against her.

The principle that is most at stake here is personal freedom. We have seen in China the debasement of human dignity on a grand scale when population control is imposed by an authoritarian regime. Mr. Bush deserves credit for refusing to coerce American taxpayers into paying for it, and Ms. Sauerbrey deserves to be confirmed.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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apple
one of the angels
"The principle that is most at stake here is personal freedom. We have seen in China the debasement of human dignity on a grand scale when population control is imposed by an authoritarian regime. Mr. Bush deserves credit for refusing to coerce American taxpayers into paying for it"

Coercive abortion is a horrific example of inhumanity on many levels.

What awaits the world if we endorse that sort of thing?
it behooves me to behold
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ivorythumper
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Why is this "obviously a screed"? Is a screed an editorial that has a conservative point of view, or more generally one that you happen to disagree with?
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
It's a screed because it doesn't present the issue in anything approaching a neutral fashion. I don't know whether I agree or disagree ... I certainly don't favor forced abortions, but neither do I agree that capitalism is the best contraceptive. For the moment, I'm just looking for more complete information, hopefully presented in a more balanced fashion.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Do editorials EVER present the issue in anything approaching a neutral fashion? I thought that was the idea of an editorial -- a rhetorical device to sway opinion.

You might find it to be biased to the conservative position, but you might want to look at Harvard Law professor Mary Anne Glendon's work on women's rights and China. No specific works come to mind, however.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
For what it's worth, my opinion is that Western democracies, including the USA, should be a lot tougher on China regarding all aspects of human rights abuses, including this issue.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
Quote:
 
Do editorials EVER present the issue in anything approaching a neutral fashion?


So you're saying that all editorials are screeds, yet you wonder why I called it a screed? As I said, I was looking for more balanced information. Thanks for the source citation, I'll try to look something up tonight.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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apple
one of the angels
it would be fun to list the smart impartial journalists
it behooves me to behold
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Rick Zimmer
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apple
Nov 7 2005, 11:01 AM
"The principle that is most at stake here is personal freedom. We have seen in China the debasement of human dignity on a grand scale when population control is imposed by an authoritarian regime. Mr. Bush deserves credit for refusing to coerce American taxpayers into paying for it"

Coercive abortion is a horrific example of inhumanity on many levels.

What awaits the world if we endorse that sort of thing?

I completely agree with you apple, even about Bush's desire not to fund such forced abotions in China.

What the editorial does not say, though, is that there are far mroe reasons for Mr. Bush not wanting to pay these funds. They include the fact that the UN distributes contraceptives, including condoms for the prevention of AIDS, in Africa.

While I may agree on the issue for forced abortions, I compleltely disagree on Bush's position on contraception and find it to be just another example of him trying to enforce an narrow moralilty through the use of taxpayer's money.

The editorial conveniently ignores this issue and as such is less than credible. One has to wonder if the situation in China is as the WSJ describes, since the actions of the Bush Admininstration it decribes is far less than complete.
[size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size]
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
Quote:
 
it would be fun to list the smart impartial journalists


Anyone who uses big words and whose views coincide with my own. Actually, you can scrub the bit about the big words.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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M&M's
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apple
Nov 7 2005, 12:27 PM
it would be fun to list the smart impartial journalists

That would be a really short list! :P Matter of fact, you'd be hard pressed to find any human being that wasn't biased in someway.
My child shows GOOD CHARACTERIZATION in an ongoing game of D&D
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M&M's
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Fulla-Carp
Rick Zimmer
Nov 7 2005, 12:32 PM
apple
Nov 7 2005, 11:01 AM
"The principle that is most at stake here is personal freedom. We have seen in China the debasement of human dignity on a grand scale when population control is imposed by an authoritarian regime. Mr. Bush deserves credit for refusing to coerce American taxpayers into paying for it"

Coercive abortion is a horrific example of inhumanity on many levels. 

What awaits the world if we endorse that sort of thing?

I completely agree with you apple, even about Bush's desire not to fund such forced abotions in China.

What the editorial does not say, though, is that there are far mroe reasons for Mr. Bush not wanting to pay these funds. They include the fact that the UN distributes contraceptives, including condoms for the prevention of AIDS, in Africa.

While I may agree on the issue for forced abortions, I compleltely disagree on Bush's position on contraception and find it to be just another example of him trying to enforce an narrow moralilty through the use of taxpayer's money.

The editorial conveniently ignores this issue and as such is less than credible. One has to wonder if the situation in China is as the WSJ describes, since the actions of the Bush Admininstration it decribes is far less than complete.

Why should we have to provide them with condoms? They know the consequence for having unprotected sex. Why not promote self control. You can send all the condoms you want. There is nothing to solve the problem other holding people responsible for there actions.
My child shows GOOD CHARACTERIZATION in an ongoing game of D&D
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
QuirtEvans
Nov 7 2005, 01:24 PM
Quote:
 
Do editorials EVER present the issue in anything approaching a neutral fashion?


So you're saying that all editorials are screeds, yet you wonder why I called it a screed? As I said, I was looking for more balanced information. Thanks for the source citation, I'll try to look something up tonight.

No, I am saying that all editorials present biased views intended to persuade or convince. Editorials are understood to be rhetorical devices.

Again, you miss the point.

Screed is your word. In common parlance a screed connotes a shrill and pedantic piece of writing, usually long and monotonous and repetitive. It is a harangue or a tirade. It is related in etymology to "shred". It is used dismissively to discredit a writing.

An editorial might be a screed, but it is not necessarily. The article you posted seemed to be informative and nuanced, even if clearly intended to influence. IMHO it is not a screed.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
Quote:
 
Why should we have to provide them with condoms? They know the consequence for having unprotected sex. Why not promote self control. You can send all the condoms you want. There is nothing to solve the problem other holding people responsible for there actions.


I think you may have missed a smiley at the end of that - on the other hand, one can never be sure around here.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Rick Zimmer
Nov 7 2005, 01:32 PM

While I may agree on the issue for forced abortions, I compleltely disagree on Bush's position on contraception and find it to be just another example of him trying to enforce an narrow moralilty through the use of taxpayer's money. 

So you would rather him use taxpayers' monies to promote a wider view of immorality? :blink:

Part of the problem with AIDS in Africa is the myth that having sex with virgins will cure AIDS -- hence many children and even babies are raped. You really think condoms are going to help this sort of thing?

Truth or Fiction gives this a "Truth", while Snopes gives this an "undetermined" but cites the following:

Quote:
 
According to Latasha Treger, a senior programme officer at the project that worked on this study, "All studies on [rape] causation conclude that there are multiple factors. Child rape in South Africa is the result of a complex situation caused by the social dynamics of male hierarchy and violence against women and children. The idea that having sex with a virgin cleanses you of AIDS does exist in South Africa and there have been reported cases of this as a motivating factor for child rape, but the predominant evidence suggests that this is infrequently the case."
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
Quote:
 
Part of the problem with AIDS in Africa is the myth that having sex with virgins will cure AIDS -- hence many children and even babies are raped. You really think condoms are going to help this sort of thing?


Education will help with that problem. Condoms will help with stopping the spread of AIDS. You may not approve of the use of contraception, however denying it to others, particularly in present day Africa, could be seen as somewhat dogmatic and short-sighted.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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ivorythumper
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Or just a gigantic waste of money that will assauge the delicate consciences of the liberals.

I am all in favor of education. In Africa you are dealing with vast masses of uneducated illiterates. Get them first to understand that raping babies won't cure their AIDS, then let's talk about condom distribution.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
Quote:
 
Or just a gigantic waste of money that will assauge the delicate consciences of the liberals.

I am all in favor of education. In Africa you are dealing with vast masses of uneducated illiterates. Get them first to understand that raping babies won't cure their AIDS, then let's talk about condom distribution.


My point was you need both.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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AlbertaCrude
Bull-Carp
I would agree. It would seem to me that teaching vast masses of uneducated illiterates that if they can't be good they can at least be careful, just might mitigate the problem temporarily and enough so that there will be at least a few uninfected illiterates out there to educate properly in the future.
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