While president of feminist group praises the one child policy, Chinese woman undergoes five forced abortions

Molly Yard (president of NOW, The National Organization for Women, a proabortion feminist group, at the time) in response to a question on the Oprah Winfrey Show:

“I consider the Chinese government’s policy among the most intelligent in the world. It is a policy limited to the overpopulated areas, and it is an attempt to feed the people of China. I find it very intelligent.”

As quoted by Gary Bauer “Abetting Coercion in China” The Washington Times, Oct 10, 1989

Meanwhile, in China, Liu Ping was the victim forced abortions in China. When she married her husband, she was supposed to be fitted with an IUD, as all married women were required to be. However, she was suffering from kidney disease and the IUD was too much of a health risk. From her testimony.

“From 1983 to 1990, because of the one child policy, I had to undergo five forced abortions on the following dates: September 28, 1984; December 17, 1985; March 20, 1986; May 5, 1989; and December 14, 1990.…. I suffered greatly at the hands of the inhumane one child policy.

In the 1980s, shortly after implementation of the one child policy in China, there were many severe methods of surveillance and punishment to prevent unplanned pregnancies and above quota births. My factory’s Family-Planning Commission used three levels of control: at the factory level, in the factory clinic, and on the factory floor. There was a system of collective punishment. If one worker violated the rules, all workers would be punished. Workers monitored each other. Women of reproductive age can account for 60% of my factory floor. Colleagues were suspicious and hostile to each other because of the one child policy. Two of my pregnancies were reported by my colleagues to the Family-Planning Commission.

When discovered, pregnant women would be dragged to undergo forced abortions. There was simply no other choice. We had no dignity as potential childbearers. By order of the factory’s Family-Planning Commission, every month during her menstrual period, women had to undress in front of the birth planning doctor for examination. If anyone escaped this examination, she would be forced to take a pregnancy test at the hospital. We were only allowed to collect a salary after it was confirmed that we were not pregnant.

The day of my fifth and last abortion, December 14, 1990, was the saddest day of my life. Because I was not able to prove that I wasn’t pregnant within the 10 to 15 day period, the birth planning doctor in the factory clinic found out about my pregnancy. That day, officials from the factory’s Family-Planning Commission forced me to be driven to the City Police Hospital and forced me to have an abortion in the birth planning department. It was my first operation in that hospital. All my previous abortions took place in the Central City Hospital.

I did not know what officials in my factory told the doctors. After the abortion, the doctors, without my knowledge, implanted a metal IUD in my body. When I learned of the procedure, I protested that I had a kidney disease and could not keep the IUD, but they completely ignored me. The doctor just gave the bill to my husband and told him to pay. While my husband argued with the doctors, I was recovering in the hospital bed. When I left the operating room, still weak, I could not find my husband. I was told that he was arrested. I collapsed crying from the physical toll of the two of operations and the emotional shock. A kind nurse tried to comfort me somewhat, but she was shood away by a man who also threatened to have me arrested by the police.

By this time, the family-planning officials who dragged me to the hospital were nowhere to be found. I felt alone, sick, and weak. Afterwards, I learned that my husband had been sentenced to criminal detention without a trial for violating and obstructing the one child policy, disturbing the normal operations of the hospital, and disturbing social peace. Fifteen days later, my husband was finally released to return home.

I was in great pain from medical IUD, and the weakness of the abortion, and almost did not want to live. The rest of my husband deprived me of the care of my family. My young child did not know what was happening and kept crying for his father. I did not know what to do and could only hold my son and cry with him.… Those painful fifteen days of separation became the catalyst of my eventual failed marriage.

My body suffered great damage from all those five forced abortions. I gradually grew afraid of family life with my husband. I tried to find excuses to refuse any intimacy demands for my husband. I grew to hate him after the IUD was inserted because I blamed my sufferings on him, on his unwillingness to be surgically sterilized. He had known of my kidney disease, but would not make any sacrifice for me, and therefore, he didn’t love me.

After the fifth abortion in the IUD insertion, my factory also gave me a serious administrative warning and find me six months wages. Afterwards, I had to go to the factory clinic every month for exams to make certain that I had not privately taking out the IUD or become pregnant again. I carry the IUD in my body for over a decade before finally came to America.”

Liu Ping eventually moved to the United States, divorced her husband, became a Christian, and subsequently reconciled with her husband. She claims to have found healing through her religion.

She told her story before the Hearing before the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 112th Congress, First Session. September 22, 2011