Chinese Woman Ordered to Undergo Late-Term Abortion Permitted to Keep Her Child After Public Outrage

Leah Marieann Klett : May 21, 2015
The Gospel Herald

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(China)—The one-child policy in China has been in place for over 30 years. (Photo: Hundreds of Chinese babies accompanied by their parents prepare to take part in a baby swimming contest/ STR/Getty Images/via Gospel Herald)

A pregnant woman from China who was ordered to have a late-term abortion after she moved to an area with different rules on the one-child policy has been told she can keep the baby amid public outrage.

On Wednesday, the South China Morning Post revealed that the family planning commission in Guizhou province had overturned a ruling by county level officials ordering Tan Yi to have an abortion by the end of the month, or be fired from her job as a teacher.

Several months ago, Tan was told in her home city of Huangshan in Anhui province that she could have a second baby with her husband, Meng Shaoping, because she was divorced from the father of her first child.

However, her case made headlines a few months later after she moved to Libo county in Guizhou with her second husband and was told the pregnancy had to be terminated because one-child policy rules were enforced more strictly there. An officer for the commission told AP that before overturning the decision, authorities investigated whether Qin transferred her residency to Huagshan earlier this year purely to get permission to have a baby.

China's one-child policy, which has been in place for over 30 years, is promoted by the Communist Party as being vital to alleviating social, economic and environmental problems across the country. According to the Chinese Health ministry, doctors have performed 336 million abortions and 196 million sterilizations, since 1971 and inserted 403 million intrauterine devices.

The practice has been condemned by many, including Reggie Littlejohn, president of Women's Rights Without Frontiers, who called the policy "brutal."

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