Points:

1-Child Policy Act Main Objectives: Population reduction and Poverty eradication
Arguments:
Hundreds of pregnant women were forced to abort (Steven Mosher,
President of the Population Research Institute, an organization
dedicated to ending abusive population control programs in China and
around the world, Life site Mag, October 6, 2014)
Areas in the Philippines remain thinly populated, even as the number
of persons in urban areas grows. This is not related to the rise or fall in
the country's fertility rates. Controlling the Philippine population may
even be detrimental as will weaken the country's workforce. (Sotto,
privilege speech)
Metro Manila is overcrowded, but the Philippines is not overpopulated
(Philippine Daily Inquirer)
332 million abortions and 222 millions sterilizations have been linked
to the legislation
Abortions are mandatory for women who do not adhere to the law..
There are an increasing number of sterilizations, IUD insertions, and
selective abortions for girls performed. Such trauma has been linked to
Chinas female suicide rate as ranked highest in the world.
One child policy act is not only an ignorance of womens reproductive
rights, but also an unjust and unacceptable violation of human rights
The one child policy has disrupted Chinese society both socially and
economically. On the social front, you have two generations of
Chinese adults who never had the benefits of growing up in the
competitive environment of siblings. In fact, they likely grew up in a
pampered environment that tends to create a society of self-centered
people. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2013/03/28/why-china-
is-finally-abandoning-its-one-child-policy/)


Related articles:

Hundreds of pregnant women were forced to abort by Steven W. Mosher- the President of
the Population Research Institute, an organization dedicated to ending abusive population control
programs in China and around the world. Article first published on Aleteia.org September 30,
2014.

The woman on the operating table was nearly eight months pregnant. The doctor picked
up a scalpel and made a transverse incision across her lower abdomen. Soon he was through the
uterine wall, and removing a perfectly formed baby boy. The little boy was dead, of course,
having been killed by lethal injection into the uterus the day before.

It was March 1980, and the Chinese Party-State had just gotten deadly serious about
population control. The year before, Vice Premier Chen Muhua, the female head of Chinas
Family Planning Board, had let it be known that Socialism should make it possible to regulate
the reproduction of human beings. Deng Xiaoping, Chinas so-called Paramount Leader, had
gone even further, ordering senior cadres to Use whatever means you must to reduce the
population, just do it!

Eager to follow orders, Guangdong provincial officials had directed local officials to stop
couples from having more than one or, at most, two children. Couples were only allowed a
second child, the new rule said, if more than four years had elapsed since the birth of their first.
Third and higher order children were absolutely forbidden. The Communist Party official in
charge of Junan Peoples Commune, where I was living, wasted no time. He rounded up all the
women in the commune who were pregnant illegally there were hundreds and told them
that they would have to have abortions. Those who refused were placed under arrest and
incarcerated sometimes for weeks or months until they bowed to the inevitable.

The commune medical clinic was turned into a killing field. Women less than five
months pregnant were given immediate abortions. Women more than five months pregnant were
given lethal injections into the womb to kill their unborn children and bring on uterine
contractions. If the dead or dying baby was not expelled naturally within a day or two, they were
removed by cesarean section abortions of the kind I had witnessed. Then they were buried in
unmarked graves.
As far as I know, I am the first and only Western eyewitness to the kinds of horrors
forced abortions, forced sterilizations, infanticide, and the like which are typical of Chinas
one-child policy down to the present day. Ironically enough, it was the architect of that policy,
Deng Xiaoping himself, who was responsible for my being in China in the first place. The
Chinese side had turned down my research proposal when it was initially advanced by the U.S.
State Department. Deng had overruled them. So I got to see first-hand what he had wrought.
The one-child policy was not formally announced until 25 September 1980, but was already in
effect in several provinces for many months prior to that date. (The Chinese Party-State likes to
test its grand experiments in social engineering in a province or two prior to implementing
them on a national basis.)

Thirty-five years later, the one-child policy continues to take a terrible toll on Chinese women.

Forced abortions of the kind that I witnessed must be at the top of the list. Of the tens of
millions of abortions in China today, many are performed under duress. The women are brought
in, by force or the threat of force, for abortions they do not want and deeply regret. Its no
wonder that Chinese women have the highest suicide rate in the world.

Forced sterilizations are commonplace. Chinese population control police sterilize women to
take them out of the baby-making business forever. The birth control regulations advise
sterilization after baby number one, and require it after baby number two. The 2008 Sichuan
earthquake killed thousands of only children whose parents had been sterilized by the authorities,
and who were thus denied the opportunity to have more children.

Female infanticide and sex-selection abortion are rampant. Roughly one in six girls conceived
in China is killed before or after birth by parents anxious to have a son. The one-child policy
leaves couples with only one, or at most two, chances to have a son. It has resulted in the deaths
of some 37 million girls. This shortage of women explains why China is responsible for about
60% of the worlds sex trafficking.

Abortion in China has cost the lives of perhaps 400 million children since the beginning of
the one-child policy, a number greater than the population of the United States. Although the
Chinese Party-State is proud of its success, the country will pay a heavy price in the future for
eliminating half of the next generation. Despite these abuses, Chinas one-child policy has its
foreign defenders. These usually claim that the countrys birth control regimen is not really a
one-child policy because some Chinese couples are allowed to have a second child. But so
what? The Chinese government has always made exceptions to the one-child rule for some
couples. The Chinese Party-State, you see, understands as some foreign population control
enthusiasts apparently dont that it really doesnt matter whether it allows couples to have one
child or two children. What is important is the principle first laid down by Chairman Mao
Zedong way back in the Fifties of Party control over reproduction.

The Chinese Party-State rejects out of hand the internationally recognized right of parents
to freely determine the number and the spacing of their children. Instead, to put it bluntly, it
believes that it owns the reproductive systems of the Chinese people. The birth control
regulations published by the Chinese Party-State are not mere suggestions to the Chinese people
about the size of their families. They are hard and fast rules about when and under what
circumstances they are permitted to use their reproductive systems to conceive and bear children.
This is why it makes more sense to continue to call Chinas population control program a one-
child policy rather than something softer-sounding like a family planning policy. And this is
why the horrific violations of human rights detailed above continue to occur day in and day out
in China.

It wouldnt matter if the Chinese Party-State tomorrow declared a two-child policy
across the board. This would not change the fact that the Chinese government was still asserting
total control over procreation and, in pursuit of such control, continuing to systematically violate
the human rights of the Chinese people. Until China stops trying to follow Vice Premier Chen
Muhuas dictate to regulate the reproduction of human beings, the rights of Chinese parents
will continue to be violated. And the tragedy of Chinas one-child policy will continue.

Kirsten:
BEIJING, China A woman who endured three coerced abortions at the hands of family
planning officials in China has opened up about her guilt and sorrow following the deaths of her
three unborn children, and the suffering all Chinese women face as a result of the communist
governments draconian one child policy.

In an article for the China Aid website, Jinghong Cai, now a Ph.D. student in the United
States, shared her personal story of grief and redemption, and shed light on the governmental and
cultural pressure women undergo when it comes to pregnancy in the communist nation. The
first time I was forced to have an abortion because I did not apply for the governments permit to
get pregnant, Jinghong wrote. My department secretary in charge of family planning told me
that it was better for me to have a secret abortion than being reported and then punished.

Of course, she was not being kind to me or anything, wrote Jinghong. The reason she
asked me to have a secret abortion was that if I was punished for breaking the family planning
law, the university would receive a stern warning, even a hefty fine, and the university leaders
would have to submit a letter of remorse for negligence and dereliction of duty!
Jinghong later went through official channels and received permission to become pregnant. She
gave birth to a baby boy. But soon, she found herself again at the mercy of the family planning
police.

After my son was born, I got pregnant again, and for the same reason I had a second
abortion, recounted Jinghong. After that, the doctor recommended that I use a Copper-T IUD,
a type of long-acting, reversible contraception. Unfortunately, this device, considered one of the
most effective forms of birth control, was disposed of by my body unbeknownst to me. I got
pregnant again. For the same reason, I had another abortion.

As a Christian, I know that God has forgiven me, but for years, I carried with me the
pain, shame and guilt of having snuffed out three precious lives, Jinghong wrote. Soon after her
baptism in 2012, I confessed my sin of abortion to God [and] had a blissful dreamthree young
children giggling joyfully, playing hide and seek, running around a smiling man in a long, white
robe. I knew I was forgiven. Jinghong says that aside from her conversion to Christianity, her
story is far from unusual in China.

My story is not unique; it is the story of millions of Chinese women, wrote Jinghong.
She recounted the story of her aunt, who gave birth to three girls in violation of the one child
policy before finally having a son, risking harsh and extreme punishment by the authorities.
One morning in June [of 1985], recalled Jinghong, the police drove a big truck into my aunts
village and forced all married women to jump on the truck. Many of them were middle-aged, had
already had children, and were not even pregnant. The police told them that they would undergo
a medical checkup at the hospital, but once there, they all were forcedly sterilized.

Kim Arveen Patria | Yahoo! Southeast Asia Newsroom Wed, Sep 5, 2012
"Is the Philippines overpopulated?" Senator Vicente "Tito" Sotto asked, as he scoffed at
the need for a Reproductive Health (RH) Bill which he claimed was a population control
measure. The National Statistics Office pegged the Philippine population at 92.34 million in
2010, up from 88.57 million in in 2007.
In a privilege speech Wednesday, however, Sotto said RH advocates' claims that the
Philippines needs an RH bill to control the booming population "lack bases and are weakly
founded." Sotto pointed to data which show a drop in fertility rates to 3.19 births per woman in
2011 from 3.48 in 2000. "Napakalaki ng ibinaba nito mula sa 7 noong 1960 (This is a significant
decline from 7 in 1960)," Sotto said.
He added that population growth decreased to 1.9 percent in 2010, noting that this is
lower than 2.07 percent in 1948. Experts have also stressed that areas in the Philippines remain
thinly populated, even as the number of persons in urban areas grow, Sotto said. "Wala po itong
kinalaman sa pagtaas o pagbaba ng fertility rate sa bansa (This is not related to the rise or fall in
the country's fertility rates)," he added.
Quoting economist Bernardo Villegas, Sotto instead attributed the problem of overly
populated areas in the country to "at least three decades of erroneous policy of utterly neglecting
countryside and rural development." Sotto went on to say that controlling the Philippine
population may even be detrimental as will weaken the country's workforce. He urged the
government "learn from the mistakes of other countries" which he claimed now experience the
negative effects of an "aging population." This is due to these countries' "aggressive campaign to
control the population and their support for contraceptive use," he said.
As for the RH bill in the Philippines, Sotto said: "[A]ng kalalabasan ay ang paggamit ng
birth control bilang instrumento para paliitin ang populasyon (The outcome will be the use of
birth control as an instrument to lower the population)." "[H]indi tayo makabubuo ng ang isang
situwasyon kung saan tatapyasin ang laki ng mga pamilya nang hindi pinaliliit ang populasyon
ng bansa (We cannot create a situation where the size of the family is reduced without reducing
the country's population)," Sotto added. A group advocating the RH bill, however, noted that the
controversial measure is not put forward as a population control measure.
"Kung liliit man po ang populasyon, ito po ay epekto lamang ng kagustuhan ng bawat
pamilya na magpasyang maliit lamang ang gusto nilang pamilya (Any decrease in population
will be due to individual families' choice to limit their family size)," Ernesto Almocera, Jr.,
director for Advocacy and Policy Development at the Philippine Legislators' Committee for
Population and Development, Inc., said.
"What the bill aims to address is the unmet need for contraceptives and family planning supply,"
he added. Almocera also hit Sotto's statement that the RH Bill is unnecessary since current laws
do not rob families of "freedom of choice" when it comes to family planning. "Women and
families may have the freedom to choose but their choice may not be informed," Almocera said.
"Ang pinakamahihirap na kababaihan po ay hindi naaabot ng kasalukuyang programa sa family
planning (The poorest women are not reached by current government family planning
programs)," he added. Commenting on Sotto's claims that the RH bill will encourage abortion,
Almocera said: "The RH bill will effectively inhibit the prevalence of abortion by reducing the
number of unplanned pregnancies." This, as Almocera admitted that the Rh bill has provisions
on abortion, noting however that there are "only to manage the complications resulting from
abortion." "Besides, the bill clearly states that abortion will remain illegal and punishable by
law," Almocera said.
http://www.allgirlsallowed.org/news/over-quota-children-denied-education-distressed-
father-commits-suicide
GUIZHOU, China--Last month, desperate father Wang Guangrong ended his life after the local
government denied school access to his over-quota children.
Family Planning Officials had slapped Wang with a fine exceeding 10,000 yuan ($1600)
for his extra children, but it was too massive for him to pay. In February, Wang attempted to
register his children for classes at the local school, but the school demanded that he first provide
proof that he had paid the One-Child Policy fines. Wang appealed to local officials for mercy,
but they denied his requests. Hopeless, Wang killed himself on March 3.
Wang had four children total.
News of Wangs suicide spread quickly and eventually reached the ears of high school
teacher Hong Wei in Guangdong Province. Hong was outraged and demanded that the Chinese
government publicize One-Child Policy punishment details and include whether punishments
will affect education for over-quota children. In an interview with Radio Free Asia, Hong
complained that the Chinese government constantly punishes violators of the One-Child Policy,
but never reveals the terms of punishment to the public. As a teacher, this is something I want to
know. Hong said.
Cheng Yuan, director of Guangzhou Equal Opportunities Center, supported Hong in his
stand. Cheng commented on the vast amount of social support fees that China collects from
violators of the One-Child Policy, and said that nobody actually knows what happens to that
money. The Chinese government claims that it collects these fees to compensate for the
sacrifice society has made to raise up over-quota children, but the fees are usually too much for
families to pay and the destination of the money is unclear.
Cheng says the One-Child Policy is unconstitutional. He believes that it harms the basic
rights of the Chinese people and that the government unjustly withholds details from the public.
"Every law that the government implements should be made transparent to the Chinese people,"
Cheng said. "Otherwise, the notion of the 'rule of law' will remain as elusive and meaningless as
ever."
This is not the first time a desperate parent has committed suicide over One-Child Policy
fines. In December 2013, 45-year-old farmer Ai Guangdong killed himself by drinking pesticide
after the government fined him 60,000 yuan ($9,882) for having three children. Additionally, in
July 2013, 16-year-old Cai Yanqiong attempted the same method of suicide after learning that
she, like Wangs children, would not be able to attend university because she was over-quota.
Nor is this the first time people have complained about lack of transparency in relation to
these fines. In 2012, a report by lawyer Wu Youshui revealed that the Chinese government had
collected $2.7 billion in social support fees that year. Following that report, Chinas top
auditor revealed in 2013 that from 2009-2012 Family Planning Officials had misappropriated 1.6
billion yuan ($261.4 million) in One-Child Policy fines. After this, Wu Youshui requested (under
the Chinese Ordinance on Open Government Information) that Guangdongs Ministry of Health
and Family Planning reveal how certain funds were being used. The Ministry refused to disclose
the information, so Wu filed a lawsuit against them. In April, the court ruled that Guangdong had
15 days to disclose the information to the public.
For years, China has kept the details of One-Child Policy fines and punishments
confidential. Fathers like Wang Guangrong agonize over these impossible fines, yet the
government refuses to say how they use the collected money. The 2013 report suggested that
much of this money ends up in the hands of Family Planning Officials themselves.
Lawyer Wu Yousui is still challenging the government where he sees their corruption and
unjust policies. Perhaps if more people join him in speaking out, stories like Wang Guangrong's
will be fewer.
The Philippines is not overpopulated. (http://catholicfaithdefenders.com/tag/population-of-
the-philippines)
The battle cry of proponents of RH BILL and its principal sponsors both in congress and
the senate is that the Philippines is already overpopulated and this is the root cause of poverty.
Their battle cry will be vindicated if the Philippines is truly overpopulated. The projected
population of the Philippines in 2010 is 94.01M1 and according to the advocates of RH BILL we
are dangerously overpopulated and sooner or later our country will be plunged into irreversible
poverty. The assumption that we are overpopulated is entirely baseless, their only evidence for
their belief that we are overpopulated is the numerical value of our population other than that is
simply false assumptions. They keep on telling people through mass media that we are
overpopulated yet they did not provide us with any parameters for knowing that we are truly
overpopulated. Demographically we are not overpopulated since our population growth rate is
steadily declining and there are still a lot of uninhabited spaces for us to live in.
The National Statistics Office noted that since 1995 up to 2025 our population growth
rate is plunging from 2.32% to 1.4%2 aside from that our total fertility rate is also going down
from 3.7 in 1998 to 1.5 in 2025 3just enough to replace the population. These two statistical
indicators prove that our population is declining, but how do we explain the latest statistical data
that shows the growth of our population from 94 million in the year 2000 to 97 million in the
year 2012? The increase in our population is the effect of the increase in growth rate 10 or 20
years ago. The declining growth and fertility rate of the recent statistical data will have its effect
10 to 20 years from now. Basing on these statistics the idea that we are overpopulated is far from
reality. They only make use of the overpopulation argument in order to make it appear that there
is a need to control the population, but in reality we are not overpopulated and overpopulation is
a myth!

Population spawns poverty? No! (Bernardo M. Villegas, Ph.d, Positive Dimensions of
Population Growth, p.32, 2011)
The basic logic behind this argument is that as our population increases it will also
increase the poverty rate of our country, in other words the causative factor of poverty is
population. Furthermore, they also argued that in order to combat poverty we must control our
population. Although the intention of our lawmakers in confronting the problem of poverty is
good yet they are throwing a wrong solution to a real problem. Population control is not a
solution to poverty, common sense tells us that there can also be poverty in a small population.
Population is not our enemy as a matter of fact it is the reason why our economy is still intact in
the ongoing global crisis. Economist Bernardo M. Villegas, Ph.d wrote Lessons are being
learned from the ongoing global crisis. One of them is that a large and young population can
partly insulate a country from ill effects of global recession.1 In a global perspective population
has no relation with poverty, there are countries that has even greater population than us, yet,
they are more progressive and has less population in poverty compared with us.
There is no correlation between population and poverty. As we have seen the first four
countries namely China, India, United States of America and Japan have a higher population
compared to Philippines. However, looking at its poverty percentage Philippines has a higher
poverty rate compared with the other countries. This data proves two things, an increase in
population has no connection with poverty and an increase in population can bolster economic
growth. Clearly the arguments used by proponents of RH BILL cannot hold water upon close
scrutiny.