US Vice President Joseph Biden committed an act of slander against the Chinese people by claiming that the Chinese government practices “forced abortion and sterilization.” Biden used his office to make the statement after leading Republican candidate Mitt Romney accused him of supporting the claimed actions.

Biden spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said, “The Obama administration strongly opposes all aspects of China’s coercive birth limitation policies, including forced abortion and sterilization.”

Romney and his rival Rick Perry both accused the Vice President of condoning the practise. Rick Perry added, “Americans value life, and we deserve leaders who will stand up against such inhumanity, not cast a blind eye.” No word yet on how Perry plans to explain his support for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that has killed over 3 million people.

Of course at no point did Biden support forced abortions. He did say that he understood the difficulty China faces with over population. His actual statement is, “your policy has been one which I fully understand — I’m not second-guessing — of one child per family.” That is clearly not an endorsement of forced abortions.

Now on to the subject of the claimed forced abortions. The Republicans are referring to an April 23, 2007 NPR article by Louisa Lim where she claims to have found evidence of these abortions. (The link to the article is provided in the description.) The article claims that it is Chinese government policy to force abortions on women through the “One Child Policy” that was adopted by the revisionist Deng Xiaoping in 1980. Deng was the man who brought capitalism back to China starting that year.

Nowhere in the “One Child Policy” does it command forced abortions. The policy provides incentives to couples who have only a single child. In fact a slogan mentioned by the NPR article reads: “Keep the birth rate low to enhance the quality of the population.”

According to the article, “The couple was given a consent agreement to sign. When Liang refused, family planning officials signed it for him.” These were the words of the author, not the words of the woman being interviewed. Nowhere does the women actually state that this in fact happened. “Her” story is full of holes, like failing to mention the name of the public hospital she was forced to. Or the name of the doctor who performed the procedure.

However this piece of information is very telling. “He and his wife are devout Christians — he is a pastor — and they don’t agree with abortion.” What we have is a typical piece designed to whip up Christian fundamentalist prejudice. Its just a coincidence that its a Christian Pastor? Few things are more reliable, or useable, than provoking American prejudice towards other countries and races.

The article was clearly written to whip up anti-Chinese sentiment among the American population. This can be seen in another part of this article:

‘”The nurses dealt with the body like it was rubbish,” Wei said. “They wrapped it up in a black plastic bag and threw it in the trash.”‘

Well, yes, I’m sure this did happen because that is how an abortion is carried out. The fetus is removed and then placed in a bio-hazardous materials bag and place in a proper medical waste unit. This is not unique to China, this is how abortions are carried out. The way it was written was intended to invoke the Chinese as being monsters that have no regard for human life. Painting them as inhuman psychotic creatures, relying again on racism as propaganda.

Later in the article the author goes on to make an unsubstantiated claim:

“An eyewitness, who requested anonymity for fear of the consequences, said that he counted 41 occupied beds on just one floor of the maternity hospital in Baise and that he believed none of the women he saw had come to the hospital of their own free will.”

With this witness, like the last, fails to mention the name of the hospital. If his or her anonymity is protected than they would be safe to reveal the name of the hospital. This is a claim, one that has not been confirmed by an investigation. It is an unsubstantiated claim.

Louisa Lim goes on to even contradict her claim in the article:

“Coerced abortions such as these were not unusual after China’s one-child policy was first introduced in 1980. But a law passed five years ago guarantees China’s citizens a degree of choice in family planning matters.”

Interestingly, no evidence came out about forced abortions for 27 years? If this had been happening for the amount of time claimed by Lim, than there should be millions upon millions of cases. None of which ever surfaced until now supposedly. Do these “forced” abortions happen in the millions, or are they illegal?

In my personal opinion, I believe that either the story was completely fabricated, or the pastor and his wife had an abortion and wanted a nice cover story to tell their congregation. Because we’ve never known Christians to be lying hypocrites right?

As for the “One Child Policy” itself, this is the inevitable result of the restoration of capitalism. Under communism, under Mao, the policy was to provide contraceptives and abortions to women to help bring the population under control. Mao and communism believe in safe-sex and sexual education. Deng Xiaoping, like Christian fundamentalists, believe in abstinence only. It should come as no surprise given the fact that absence only programs don’t work. The removal of a system designed to prevent problems and provide people with a way of dealing with them, was replaced with a system designed to punish people. Absolutely what happens with the restoration of capitalism.

Finally, note that the article doesn’t mention anything about sterilization anywhere. Mitt Romney and Rick Perry you both literally made that up.

NPR Article Source:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9766870