Warning: this story may be distressing to some readers.
This woman’s name is Feng Jianmei. She was seven months pregnant when the Government forced her to have an abortion two weeks ago.
Twenty-seven-year-old Feng is a victim of China’s one-child policy, which restricts the number of children people can have in an effort to control country’s growing population, which is now up to 1.3 billion.
She already has a 5-year-old daughter and so her second pregnancy was considered illegal. The Chinese Communist Party enforce the one-child-per-couple law through birth control, heavy fines and the threat of violence.
But in Feng’s case, that threat became reality.
Last week she had her head covered, her legs beaten and was dragged to a vehicle. She told local media that she was taken to hospital where she was given injections to stop the fetus growing and force her into labour.
Feng and her husband, Deng Ji Yuan could not afford the $6,300 fine for a second child because Deng’s mother “needed money for cancer treatment” and so forced abortion was their only option.
As if that wasn’t horrifying enough, it was also a crime. Chinese law prohibits abortions beyond six months. So even though Feng’s pregnancy was ‘illegal’, what the authorities did to her was also against the law.