HK saves mother, baby from forced abortion in China

[dArKeR]

Chinese officials tried to force a mother who was visiting from Hong Kong to abort her six-month-old fetus under China's one-child policy, but Hong Kong's government intervened to save the unborn baby, a newspaper reported yesterday.

The Hong Konger, identified only by her surname Hong, and her two young children were staying with relatives at a town in Hunan Province when family planning officials came to their home and said she had to get rid of the child, Hong Kong's Apple Daily said.

The officials tried to drag Hong to a hospital but her relatives stopped them, and Hong then contacted Hong Kong authorities who asked Hunan police to intervene, the report said.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2005/07/12/2003263164

[Pirate Smile]

1. That truly is horrific.

[xray s]

3. and your other post adds the ultimate twist

BushCo and the forced abortion advocates unite...in the name of oil and profits.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1620018

[Pirate Smile]

7. True. It is like Delay crowing here about the "Culture of Life" while

supporting Saipan companies that force employees to get abortions(by refusing to bring legislation to the floor that would stop these practices):

"The Galveston Daily News reports on more Tom DeLay-related unpleasantness. Back in the 1990s, Saipan, capital of the Northern Marianas Islands, a U.S. territory, was the site of quite a racket for the garment industry. Companies could import workers and raw materials to Saipan, which lacked a minimum wage, then tag the resulting products as “Made in the U.S.A.” Predictably, all sorts of abuses were documented: employees were locked into factories and forced to work 14-hour days, then locked into barracks during their “off” time. Recruiters induced Asian women to Saipan with promises of restaurant work, then forced them into prostitution. Women were fired for being pregnant, and sometimes resorted to dangerous and illegal abortions to keep their jobs. Republican Senator Frank Murkowski was pushing legislation to reform these conditions, but the garment companies and the Saipan government had some allies on Capitol Hill – beginning with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a “close associate” of our friend Tom DeLay.

Abramoff, who more recently has been investigated for defrauding Indian tribes of $32 million, was paid more millions to try to keep Congress from extending the federal mimimum wage to Saipan. And Abramoff seems to have convinced Tom DeLay to pitch in and oppose his fellow Republican Murkowski. According to the Daily News, DeLay now claims he “found no victims of sweatshops, sex slavery, or forced abortions” on Saipan in the mid-nineties.

But now Carmencita Abad, who worked on Saipan at the time, has called him out. She told the Daily News:


My answer is, Mr. DeLay, I am that person. I am an example of an individual who can prove that the accounts of sweatshop labor and forced prostitution are not just allegations but true accounts of working conditions in the Marianas Islands when Mr. DeLay traveled there and turned a blind eye to our misery.

<…>

I used to live in a squalid barracks — thin roofs, thin walls, concrete floors and people slept in bunk beds with 14 people sharing one restroom — no hot water, no air conditioning.

<…>

Women were fired for being pregnant. And to keep her job, any pregnant woman would either go to an illegal abortionist or try to induce miscarriage by drinking herbal potions or falling down on purpose. Women who are fired from work have no way to support themselves aside from the sex trade. There’s no way to feed yourself aside from that.
Abad spoke at a press conference outside a business luncheon held in DeLay’s honor, largely because last month DeLay called charges such as hers “incredible lies.” Inside, DeLay, when asked about Saipan, still insisted that “the workers there were very well treated. There may have existed some problems in certain instances, but not when I was there.”

http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/2005/06/incredible-lies.asp

More at: Saipan Worker Exposes DeLay’s Lies

http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=1037

[Deere_John]

2. Good time to think about what pro-choice really means...

...the government that takes over your uterus today to forbid abortion could easily become the government that mandates abortion.

[DanCa]

4. Scary Thought

Its a fine line when the government decides to play god. Thats why I perfer that term pro neutreal. Abortion should be no ones buisness but the mothers and her doctors.

[Ilsa]

6. I have been saying this for years, but you're the first person

who has seen this and thinks the same could happen. "If they can tell you that you can't have one, they can tell you when you must have one," has been my take on this.

[TahitiNut]

9. As have I. Sovereignty means they can edict either.

The authority to prohibit an aobortion is the same authority that can impose an abortion. That's NOT the kind of power any Founder ever wanted the government to have.

[Heidi]

39. Given that kind of power . . .

and control, the government could by the same token take over our uteruses (uteri?) and force us to _have_ babies to people its armed forces and voter base.

[rebecca_herman]

5. Horrible

Forced abortion is as much a violation of a woman's body as forced pregnancy. I'm glad this woman got away but most probably don't.

[MissB]

8. Link?

[dArKeR]

10. Oops. Thanks!

[nolabels]

11. Fascists are always in favor of totalitarian hegemony

To the ends that their duplicity in policies is slightly exposed is of no concern when control all forms of mass communications is in the same such hands

[iverglas]

12. yet another story ...

that I'd be waiting for some credible reports about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspapers_in_Hong_Kong

The fact that Apple Daily and Oriental Daily are of the highest circulation <in Hong Kong> can be explained by their approach.

Both have an informal style, concentrating on celebrity gossip and paparazzi photography. This style of writing, like in other markets, is popular with a large section of the public. The content is often exaggerated or outright fabricated in order to claim "exclusives". Although the subjects of these alleged falsehoods have tried to express their dissatifaction through actions such as refusing interviews or even suing the reporters, they have not stopped the papers' activities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Daily

Apple Daily is the second best selling newspaper in Hong Kong, which is in a broadsheet like most Hong Kong newspapers, but the style is regarded as tabloid-like, employing emotional headlines and vulgar words.

Its standpoint is arguably libertarian in that it supports minimum government control on economic matters and on personal and political freedom. It is also explicitly opposed to the governance of the Chinese Communist Party and the Hong Kong government.

As a result, reporters for the Apple Daily have been banned from doing interviews openly in Mainland China, and have been expelled from some commercial news conferences. Several commercial giants have also boycotted putting advertisements in the newspaper after it published reports that they considered unfavourable.

Nah, that source wouldn't have an axe to grind when it came to "reporting" on China ...

It also published reviews on prostitutes every day, along with pornographic pictures and stories, that displeased many, like parental and teacher's groups. Other issue include its explicit photos on corpses and series of photos on how people committed suicide.

In November, 1998, an example which was later coined Chan Kin-Hong Incident, a women jumped from a high building with two young children and Apple Daily paid her husband to go whoring with prostitutes. Apple Daily apologised for the outrage it caused.

Now, anybody got the latest tale from the Enquirer for us?

Actually, I think I'd believe the Enquirer first on most things.

[iverglas]

13. ah, now AP has it

Or so this place sez, anyhow:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3342888a12,00.html

Interestingly, AP doesn't identify the source of the story, and offers nothing but that source's report:

HONG KONG: Chinese officials tried to force a mother who was visiting from Hong Kong to abort her six-month-old foetus under the mainland's one-child policy, but Hong Kong's government intervened to save the unborn baby, a newspaper reported yesterday.

The Hong Kong woman, identified only by her surname Hong, ...

Where's Snopes when you need 'em? Where's journalistic integrity, for that matter?

Sorry, folks -- but the only evidence of "forced abortion" in China to date has been anecdotal and unverified. And even in the event that it has occurred, in isolated incidents in isolated locations, as a result of the actions of misguided / ignorant / irresponsible / even downright oppressive local officials, that really just don't prove nuttin about Chinese govt policy. Corruption and stupidity in government exist everywhere.

[lumpy]

24. Something is fishy about this story.

People in China are encouraged to limit births but I do not believe there are forced abortions. At least in the past people who chose to have multiple children were not entitled to some government entitlements. Correct me if I am wrong. I'll have to research this again.

[MRDU]

14. Look at all the gop talking points N/T

[Maddy McCall]

15. Look at the main Democratic talking point.

"Look what happens when a government interferes in private health care matters."

[iverglas]

yes, but

Can y'all not argue your own arguments without dragging other people into it?

If someone has credible evidence of a *policy* of forced abortion in China -- or that the incident described in the tabloid rag cited here ever occurred, or occurred in anything like the way it has been alleged -- I'd really quite like to see it.

Governments in the US *do* interfere in women's exercises of rights. Why does anyone need a bogus story from some other country to make that point?

[Maddy McCall]

23. I don't think you meant your reply to me.

You're preaching to the choir.

[iverglas]

26. I thought I did

You said:

"Look what happens when a government interferes in private health care matters."

and the fact is that there is simply no evidence of the government *of China* interfering in the way alleged in this thread. So there's nothing to look at (... move along, folks ;) ).

To see what happens when a govt interferes in women's health care, one would do well simply to look in the USAmerican back yard.

The fact that a govt that has the authority to prohibit abortion also has the authority to compel it really just isn't relevant to the question of interference in women's right to abortion. Coerced termination of pregnancy really isn't worse than coerced continuation of pregnancy. Prohibiting abortion isn't just some kind of first step on the slippery slope toward compelling abortion. It's at least equally abhorrent in itself.

And seriously, how many people who want to violate women's right to terminate a pregnancy are going to take seriously the argument that one day, the same govt that violates that right is going to violate their right *not* to terminate a pregnancy? "Partial-birth abortion" ban today, one-child policy tomorrow? That's gonna be a hard sell.

I dunno, though; maybe I misunderstood the point of your comment though.

[MRDU]

19. That's what I mean

LOOK at these talking points in this article
"Chinese officials" tried to "force a to mother abort" her "six-month-old fetus" "government intervened" to save the "unborn baby"

For three decades, China has limited most couples to one child to "stem population" growth in the country of 1.3 billion people. Critics say the policy has led to "forced abortions".

[iverglas]

21. and please -- look at the source

I've posted enough info about it in this thread to see what's what.

The medium really is the message, in this case.

[Endangered Specie]

16. Thats Communism for you.

[iverglas]

17. yeah?

What is?

An unsubstantiated report about an unnamed woman having something not done to her someplace on the other side of the world? "That" is communism? Okey dokey.

Cripes, the thread isn't even up to 20 posts yet. All the responses posted to the initial story are still visible with the first click. The effort it takes NOT to read them surely exceeds the effort it would have taken to read them.

[Endangered Specie]

18. Well, I suppose we could talk about the Great Leap Foward,

that, Im pretty sure, is a lot more documented.

Which is worse, Communism or Fascism, thats like picking between hell and hell.

[iverglas]

20. Oh, I dunno

I think we could just talk about what we're actually talking about.

That was, and still is: a totally unsubstantiated report of alleged wrongdoing by unidentified persons against an unidentified alleged victim, offered by a disgusting and notoriously untruthful piece of right-wing toilet paper calling itself a newspaper ... and maybe the reasons why people seem to need to believe anything they read.

Oh, and why someone would respond to such droppings by saying "that's communism for you".

I know I don't listen to Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter lie and then say "that's capitalism for you", myself.

(Communism is an economic model, you see, while fascism is a political model ...)

[Endangered Specie]

22. its just

communism is such a BAD economic model that it invariably results in an authoritarian dictatorship wherever it is tried in a state/country(read Animal Farm).

[lumpy]

25. Animal Farm....... bhwahhahahahahahaha

Isn't that the story about the piggy Bushes?

[Endangered Specie]

27. Its a satire of the bolshevik (sp) revolution

the point is the communists turn out to be just as bad as the tsars

[lumpy]

28. That is your interpretation.

x

[Endangered Specie]

29. and the interpretation of just about every literary scholar

Orwell was a master.

[iverglas]

30. and Orwell was a lifelong socialist

And I'm still waiting to know what any of this has to do with the bogus story that started the thread.

[Endangered Specie]

34. even if the story is bogus, the Communist government of China

has commited far worse acts.

[lumpy]

31. Orwell specifically

was writing in regards to the Stalinist government (re. Animal Farm). He was against any repressive totalitorian or autocratic form of government.

[Endangered Specie]

33. how many non - authoritarian/totalitarian communist governments

have there been?

[iverglas]

35. and how many egalitarian capitalist societies

have there been?

For that matter, how many communist societies have there been? I'd say none, myself, as would most informed people. Even though there may well be, some day, they don't actually just drop from the sky into feudal societies, for instance; certainly Marx never suggested they would.

I promise not to judge the concept of liberal democracy by what the corrupt capitalist US govt gets up to. And I don't see much point in judging the concept of communism by what a corrupt authoritarian/totalitarian govt gets up to.

And I still wonder what you think the bogus tale in this thread, or the bogus mythology it's based on, told us about communism ...

[Endangered Specie]

40. If not necessarily defending capitilisism....

not the best system ever devised, has flaws, but works reasonably well when regulated.

If you really want to live red, try moving to a communist country!

Communism, in its essence, runs blantantly counter to human nature (that is, ownership, a sense of "mine", profit motive etc etc). THe only way to get people to go communist is to form a repressive government that FORCES them to do it. That is part why I judge communism by its governments, they always end up being auth./tot., and they usually collapse after some time, and the economy always ends up sucking..

[iverglas]

32. oh, and a government stooge

Or at least, that's one interpretation of his late in life betrayals of friends.

An assortment of commentaries on the discovery of Blair's (Orwell's) ratting on his colleagues can be found here:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,5917,96572,00.html

I'm partial to Corin Redgrave's response:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,982198,00.html

[Pert_UK]

36. I seriously, seriously doubt the veracity of this report.....

This is a Taipei newspaper (which I presume is anti the Chinese government) reporting on a story from an HK newspaper, including no details (full name, town where it happened, date...).

Moreover, I don't actually think that the Chinese government goes in for forced abortions - there are certainly large fines for exceeding the "one child" policy, and some people do (unfortunately) elect to abort female babies in the hope that they go on to conceive a son - but the idea of "family planning officials" coming round to force an abortion just doesn't wash with me.

I lived in Shanghai briefly and spent time in Guangzhou and Yunnan with friends who'd lived in China for over a year. We met people who talked about the one child policy and the penalties for exceeding it, but we never heard about anything like this.

I'm sorry - it just doesn't wash with me. Sounds too much like fabricated propaganda. There are certainly a lot of terrible things that happen in China, but I'd need further convincing before I believed this.

[iverglas]

37. what ...

you thought I didn't say all that already? ;)

Or maybe you thought someone would pay attention if you said it again ...

Ah, one can live in hope!

[Pert_UK]

38. Hey...you criticise the source, I'll add personal experience....

We're a tag team!

:toast:

P.