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From: js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Channel 13 documentary on China
Message-ID: <748@mhuxt.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Apr-85 11:13:35 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxt.748
Posted: Wed Apr 10 11:13:35 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Apr-85 00:23:44 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 56


    I was flipping the channels of the tube recently when a documentary on
China's overpopulation problem and the steps the chinese government has been
taking to solve it.  I stopped to watch the rest of it, and thought that
it might be of some interest to net.abortion readers.
    I'll attempt to describe the documentary first, and save my comments till
later:
    They started out by explaining just how tough the problem currently is,
with the aid of a graph of population vs. time.  In historical times, the
land that is currently China supported a population which was a *tiny* fraction
of the size of their current population.  With the advent of the industrial
revolution and modern medicine, china's population began ramping up until it
had reached 500 million by the time of the revolution.  The graph they were
using became essentially vertical after that point, and the population has
now reached ~1 billion.  All of the farmable land in china, divided into this
population leaves 1/5 acre per person, just *barely* enough to produce enough
food to feed one person.  Moreover, due to the recent population increases,
much of the population is still young and of childbearing age.
    The government's plan is to try to have only one child per couple for the
next hundred years of so.  With this plan in effect, China will go through
10-15 lean years as the population peaks at 1.2 billion in the year 2000,
and there is only 1/7 acres of farmland per person.  Without this plan, there
will be 1.4 billion chinese by the year 2000, unless people start starving
to death before then.
    In order to put this plan into effect, the government has chosen a few
model towns in which to achieve this low birthrate to demonstrate that it
is possible.  The people making the documentary were allowed to interview
a woman who had already had her one child, and had just been 'persuaded' to
have her third abortion, this one in her eighth month.  It was very sad.
It seems that she had been attempting to hide her pregnancy, hoping to have
a son this time, and she went unreported until her seventh month, when a
'family planning' counselor was assigned to persuade her to have an
abortion.  They also interviewed this woman, the counselor, who actually
did seem to be very concerned about the health and well-being of the
pregnant woman, and who also seemed to be very relieved that she had been
successful in persuading the other woman to have  an abortion before she
gave birth.  No questions were asked either woman concerning their
opinion of the morality of the whole business.  The counselor also said
that she had tried to persuade the woman to be sterilized, but that she
was unsuccessful.

End of description of documentary.

Long-time readers of net.abortion know that while I am pro-choice, I would
not be opposed to a law which limited abortions to the first trimester or
so.  Personally, I am appalled at the idea of an abortion in the eighth
month of pregnancy, but cannot help but wonder if it is kinder than letting
the kid grow up to starve to death when they are 15.  

I don't have an easy solution to the dilemna the chinese face.  I'm sure
pro-lifers will condemn the chinese government for its solution, but would
they rather see the chinese use Malthus' solution?
-- 
Jeff Sonntag
ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j
    "Pulled a muscle in my ear!"-Penfold