US Reports on Forced Abortion in China, North Korea
News Briefs
US Reports on Forced Abortion in China, North Korea
According to the Bush Administration’s annual report on human rights, published in April, both China and North Korea are engaging in coercive population control programs.
The report notes that forced abortions and infanticide have been carried out in prisons in North Korea, and that the Chinese government has engaged in “violence against women” through its family planning program, which includes “imposition of a birth limitation policy coercive in nature that resulted in instances of forced abortion and forced sterilization.” The report can be viewed at www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002.
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Population Institute Links Terrorism, Overpopulation
Population Institute president Werner Fornos criticized the Bush Administration for withdrawing $34 million in funding from the United Nations Population Fund because of its involvement in coercive Chinese population control programs.
Fornos wrote in a fundraising letter, “It’s no wonder that we, the richest nation in the world, for whom $34 million is a relatively small portion of the federal budget, have people who hate us.” John Cusey, executive director of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, called the letter “extremely offensive and outrageous.”
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English Court Allows Creation of “Designer Baby”
The English Court of Appeal has ruled in favor of the creation of a “designer baby” to serve as a tissue donor for a sick sibling.
The parents of 4-year-old Zain Hashmi, who suffers from the blood disorder major thalassemia beta, had petitioned the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to authorize the use of in vitro fertilization and pre-implantation genetic screening to create and choose an embryo who would be a bone marrow donor for the older sibling. Pro-life groups are criticizing the creation of a child to be “a therapeutic commodity,” while the UK Thalassemia Society has refuted claims that this blood disorder is terminal.
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Teen Goes to Court to Stop Forced Abortion
A 16-year-old Mississippi girl is planning to carry her baby to term after U.S. District Judge William Barbour issued a temporary restraining order blocking her parents from forcing her to abort.
The teen contacted the American Family Association’s Center for Law and Policy after her parents scheduled an abortion for her at the Jacksonville Women’s Center. Her parents dropped the abortion plans after Barbour ruled that a forced abortion would cause the teen irreparable harm and “violate her constitutional right to privacy and bodily integrity.”
Orignially printed in The Post-Abortion Review, Vol. 11(2), April-June 2003. Copyright 2003, Elliot Institute.
