Most of us are familiar with the thought process behind China’s One Child Policy. But in practice, the laws enforcing population control fall short as ethics and morals fly out the window. Actual enforcement of said laws differ based on location and the socioeconomic status of those who challenge the policy. Some women and their families are subjugated to physical punishment, while others simply pay a fee.

Even one forced abortion or sterilization is one too many, so it is gut-wrenching to note that these are conducted with disturbing frequency, at the will of local officials. Worse, the government at large seems to choose to overlook certain practices.

News entities throughout the country are abuzz with the most recent publicized incident, which occurred last month in Tongshan, Hubei province. Women’s Rights Without Frontiers reports on the forced sterilization of a 42-year-old woman in Dabancheng Village, Hubei province:

It reminds us of the story last June of a forced abortion in Shanxi. These and similar events are instances of disgusting violence perpetrated by members of the government that are influenced by a greater concern for money than humanity.

This is risky, but for those Chinese mothers out there who want a second child without paying the taxes and fines, try what this Zhejiang woman did. Via SCMP (citing Qianjiang Evening News):

The 37-year-old woman, surnamed Chen, gave birth to a girl in November last year. She then gave the baby to a relative who later told police they had found an abandoned baby at their doorstep.

Chen then tried to adopt the baby she just abandoned.

The police grew suspicious after Chen anxiously tried to drive away people who wanted to adopt the baby, claiming she would adopt it herself.

A DNA test later confirmed Chen was the biological mother, the report said.

We’re not told what Chen’s penalty is, but can anyone blame Chen for taking those measures? What was she going to do, put her faith in family planning officials?

Just this week, it was reported that a family planning official ran over a 13-month-old toddler in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province. The driver and a local official have been detained for that one, with the investigating pending.

Woman ‘abandons’ second child to avoid fines (SCMP)

Feng Jianmei, who was forcibly aborted last month, and her husband Deng Jiyuan, who went missing for a while but has since resurfaced, have signed a settlement with their local government, reports Xinhua:

The family of a young Chinese woman forced to have a late-term abortion has agreed to settle the case out of court after local government offered a compensation of about 70,000 yuan (11,023 U.S. dollars), officials said Wednesday.

…Beijing-based lawyer Zhang Kai, who represents the Deng family, told Xinhua that as the agreement was signed, the family dropped a lawsuit seeking state compensation in court.

“The signing of the agreement means neither party should raise any question related to the issue again,” said an official who declined to be named. “The money has been paid.”

So that’s that. We shall never talk about this again. NEVER. EVER.

Wait…

Another victim of a forced abortion during late-term pregnancy – conducted because of the mainland’s one-child policy – is seeking redress through the courts.

Beijing lawyer Xu Can said yesterday he was representing Wu Liangjie, 30, from Daji town in Fujian province , whose wife, Pan Chunyan, also 30, was forcibly given an injection in April that killed her unborn son.

Xu also said a letter would be sent soon to the Xianyou county government, which administers Daji town, demanding that officials investigate the criminal acts of those involved in the abortion. He also said the letter would demand compensation for Wu’s family for damages and mental distress.

Goddamnit, South China Morning Post, always ruining everything with your reportage. (Actually, that article is behind a paywall, so consult Radio Free Asia instead.)

After physical and mental trauma, how else can one victimize the defenseless?

Go after the family.

That’s what appears to have happened to the woman who was forced by local Family Planning officials to abort at seven months. By now surely you’ve seen the photo, and know that authorities have done diddly shit to punish the perpetrators except (we’re told) strip them of their jobs (and I’m sure they remain unemployed, ignominiously blacklisted and shamed [SARCASM]). The latest development, according to Yanzhao City Online, is that the family of Feng Jianmei, the 27-year-old in Zengjia Town, Shaanxi whose seven-month-old fetus was removed from her belly and laid on her bedside, is being branded “traitors” for accepting an interview with foreign media. As the story appears on NetEase (translated by chinaSMACK):

…the family of the woman who suffered that forced abortion had repeatedly openly put their trust in the Party and the government, even refusing foreign media interviews as a result. But when they finally had no choice but to accept an interview from a German journalist, the villagers raised banners cursing them as traitors to the country and the father of the woman who suffered the forced abortion was forced to flee. The wolf wants to eat the sheep, and yet the sheep does everything it can to protect the wolf, while the other sheep accuse this sheep of damaging this wolf’s reputation. Just when will the absurdity of this sheep end?

Check out the chinaSMACK post if you want more details: about how the local government has organized a “water army” (paid online commenters) to smear the family’s reputation; about how it is trying to spread rumors of the existence of documents the family signed agreeing to the abortion; about how Feng Jianmei’s sister is planning to do Japanese porno; and, perhaps worst of all to one’s reputation in such a godforsaken village/township, how the family has been giving interviews to Japanese media. And according to the journalist, the local government wants its water army to spread the idea that “no one in Zhenping county’s history has ever enjoyed better post-birth care than Feng Jianmei.”

There’s enough bullshit here to fertilize the Pearl River Delta, but don’t expect anyone in Zhenping to see it. Banners were erected in front of the Feng apartment, reading, “Punish national traitors, drive them out of Zhenjia Town.” Who would want to stay, after this, and live among the foulest detritus society has to offer?

The comments on NetEase are around these lines. Again, translated on chinaSMACK:

Talk about a society that has reversed black and white and is overflowing with sewage! How do we put up with this kind of absurdity?

According to them, the people who induced labor and committed murder would be patriots then, right? I really don’t want to hurl abuse… [but] fuck you, you motherfucking “patriots”.

Whose hands is this country in?

Who are the [real] traitors of the country, the ordinary common people all know…

Have we returned to the Cultural Revolution again? With their money-making scheme ruined, we can imagine just what group of people are angry now~

To use something netizens say online: “Our countrymen have the same nature as pigs, and the same fate. Only when we’re about to be slaughtered do we tragically squeal and snort, but it changes nothing.”

As with all Chinese online discussions, members of the 50-Cent (Wumao) Army — again, commenters who get paid according to how many nice things they say about the government — lurk, so that in this case, not everyone agrees that the people who did this are husks of human beings who deserve drubbing by shillelagh. The least angry comment?

Who can prove that this was done by the local government? Who can prove that it wasn’t done by the local people on their own?

A fair question, but I’m afraid it doesn’t matter for our purposes. Here, let me activate rant mode: Zhenjia Town of Zhenpin County in Ankang City, Shaanxi province is the worst place in the world, a special type of hell that criminals in the old days would choose death over banishment in order to avoid. It doesn’t matter if the “local people” or the local government did this. Vile creatures survive — and thrive, it seems — in that place, lost like a drifting pirate ship, isolated from decency and common sense. If you think I’m being too harsh, well, yes. A woman had her seven-month-old fetus extracted from her belly and laid at her bedside, and the people responsible — who have been identified, by the way — have suffered no justice of consequence. You think about that, and wonder how high the blame should trickle, and how far it has yet to go.

UPDATE, 10:38 am: Tea Leaf Nation and Ministry of Tofu have both written about this now. I recommend TLN’s post in full; from Ministry of Tofu, this netizen comment stood out: “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” Throw that line around at your next party.

UPDATE, 6/28, 4:31 am: According to Xinhua from yesterday:

The government said its has decided to subject Yu Yanmei, deputy county magistrate of Zhenping in charging of family planning, with administrative demerits according to national and provincial policies and regulation.

Jiang Nenghai, head of the family planning bureau of Zhenping, has been removed from his post. Some other officials of the township, county government and the county hospital that aborted Feng’s pregnancy, were also punished.

How will Yu Yanmei ever survive those administrative demerits? Those “also punishments” were not revealed.

Understated as always, Xinhua reports that the city government that employed the officials who were responsible for forcing 27-year-old Feng Jianmei to abort after seven months have “apologized.” In person, I wonder? Via email? Text message? Fucking assholes.

The city government of Ankang on Thursday evening apologized to a woman who underwent a forced abortion at a hospital in northwest China’s Shanxi Province, adding that officials who have been found to be responsible for the incident will be relieved of their duties.

OK, stop. Stop this fucking charade right here. Adding that officials will be “relieved of their duties”? The fuck? This is something that really had to be appended as a dependent clause? Shouldn’t it be: “Officials guilty of forcibly aborting a woman by injecting poison into her belly have been charged with…”?

Also, am I correct in reading this? The city government is apologizing, not the officials themselves?

Moving on before anger overwhelms me and I fashion a shape poem out of curse words.

According to a preliminary investigation, several government officials in Zhenping county, which is administered by Ankang, were found to have violated national and provincial policies and regulations, the city government said.

In the very last sentence of the article, we learn about those “national and provincial policies and regulations”:

However, Feng’s abortion took place late in her pregnancy, a practice that is prohibited by China’s laws on population and family planning.

Laws on population and family planning. Not, like, laws on how to treat human beings. In other places, we just call those “laws.” Common decency, really, like knowing that killing a woman’s unborn child and then placing that child next to her in bed (graphic) is a really, supremely dick thing to do.

In the middle of the article, we’re treated to our usual dose of Xinhua balderdash, such as:

The government apologized to Feng Jianmei and her family members, saying it will accept supervision from society and cope with the case in accordance with law.

Supervision from society? Cope with the case? Like, how someone might treat gonorrhea with an antibiotic? I’m confused.

The Shaanxi Provincial Population and Family Planning Commission, which oversees family planning in the province, announced Thursday that it has dispatched an investigatory team to Zhenping and ordered the local government to punish any officials who are found to be responsible for the forced abortion.

Investigatory team? “Punish”? Like… finger torture?

Forgive me for being like this. It’s just that I don’t buy the argument that we should consider this “apology” or this “coverage by Xinhua” as a “victory.” So the central government gives a fuck, eh? Why shouldn’t they? Some rube out in the boondocks is caught being a squalling fuckhead, and the country’s top squawkbox is somehow supposed to stay silent? How low are our standards, anyway, that a woman can be forced to abort at seven months and we’re satisfied by just an apology and job loss?

Check out this Xinhua headline on a separate article: “Forced abortion case investigated amid nationwide outrage.” What an unfortunate choice of words. A more cynical man would think: forced abortion case investigated because of national outrage.

Reality or not, that’s the perception, and that’s a problem for both Xinhua and China. You might say it’s unfair, since the government in Beijing — indeed, most people – had nothing to do with this crime. But until a real punishment — actual justice — is levied, the blame will continue to rise up.

China Daily Show puts it best, I think: “A county official who forced a young woman to abort her seven-month-old child was today forced to finally give a fuck, after the rest of the country found out about it.” We’ll leave it at that.

POSTSCRIPT: The Associated Press (which rather unfortunately conflates “the government of Ankang city” and “China” in its lead) reports:

The government of Ankang city, where Feng lives in northwest China’s Shaanxi province, said a deputy mayor visited Feng and her husband in the hospital, apologized to them and said officials would be suspended amid an investigation.

“Today, I am here on behalf of the municipal government to see you and express our sincere apology to you. I hope to get your understanding,” Deputy Mayor Du Shouping said, according to a statement on the city government’s website Friday.

Leave it to the shittiest city in the world to use a private apology for the sake of public relations.

This is disgusting, infuriating and frightening all rolled into one. An organization called Women’s Rights Without Frontiers learned from a China-based human rights organization, 64Tianwang (warning: graphic images), that a woman in Shanxi province (Ed’s note: Global Times says it’s Shaanxi) named Feng Jianmei was kidnapped last week by Family Planning Officials because her family could not pay a 40,000 yuan fine. We’ll let Women’s Rights Without Frontiers take it from here:

When they did not receive the money, they forcibly aborted Feng at seven months, laying the body of her aborted baby next to her in the bed.  Feng is under medical treatment in Ankang City, Zhenpin County, Zengjia Town, Yupin village.

Reggie Littlejohn, president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, stated, “This is an outrage.  No legitimate government would commit or tolerate such an act.  Those who are responsible should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.  WRWF calls on the United States government and the leaders of the free world to strongly condemn forced abortion and all coercive family planning in China.”

According to Christian Post, “Watchdog Chinese Skynet Center for Human Rights first broke the story and it was picked up this week by Women’s Rights Without Frontiers.”

CP adds more details:

According to reports, Jianmei was beaten and dragged into vehicle on June 2 by family planning officials while her husband, Deng Jiyuan, was at work. Jiyuan told Ling of All Girls Allowed that five men had abducted his wife and taken her to a hospital where they held her down.

“They covered her head with a pillowcase. She couldn’t do anything because they were restraining her,” the husband stated.

The officials asked her to pay fines worth more than $6,000 but when the money wasn’t given, they forced Jianmei to sign an abortion “consent” form. They inked her thumb and pressed it forcibly against the form.

Toxins were then injected into the brain of her unborn daughter.

“I could feel the baby jumping around inside me all the time, but then she went still,” the mother recounted to Ling.

The forced abortion took place on June 3. After enduring painful contractions, she gave birth on June 4 to her deceased child.

Jiyuan said his wife pulled a knife against herself while thinking about her child. Feeling helpless, he said, “What can I do? I’m just an average worker. I have no power.”

The story was passed along to pro-life website LifeNews.com, which recalls in its write-up an attempted forced abortion in Changsha:

The report comes after global pressure appeared to have stopped Chinese family planning officials in Changsha, Hunan province from following through with a threatened forced abortion on a woman and her unborn baby in the fifth month of pregnancy.

…

“He said the domestic and international attention and concern that Fu’s publicity efforts elicited was the reason Ms. Cao was allowed to return home,” Fu added.

However, before her release from the hospital, Cao was forced to sign a guarantee that she will pay a 10,000 yuan (nearly US $1500) “pregnancy termination deposit fee,” which will not be returned if she insists on keeping her baby.

It’s all about the money with these fucks, isn’t it? Guided by whatever vile mafia-like or parochial code in which forcing a woman to abort her unborn daughter actually gives them a sense of meaning, we can only wish the absolute worst for the perpetrators of this atrocity. There’s not much more we can say that needs to be said — in a way, I mean, in which the words used would actually be useful. Here’s a petition from Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, to the attention of Chinese Ambassador Zhang Yesui and signed by 16,277 people so far, if that’s the sort of thing that might make you feel better.

UPDATE, 7/12, 12:18 pm: The family has settled with the local government for 70,000 yuan.