Photo sparks global outrage over China's one-child policy

Washington D.C., Jun 18, 2012 / 11:03 am

Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide have used social networks to protest China's one-child policy after a photo surfaced of an unconscious mother lying next to her seven-month old aborted fetus.

Chinese officials said they are investigating the case which occurred in the northern province of Shaanxi, where police forced Feng Jianmei to undergo an abortion after she was unable to pay the $6,200 fine levied by the government against those who wish to have more than one child.

Feng's husband posted a photo of the dead baby boy on a popular social network in China. The baby had been given a lethal injection directly into his head, while his mother was strapped to the bed by force.

More than half a million Chinese posted comments expressing outrage at the incident, and news of the forced abortion eventually spread to Facebook, Twitter and the international media.

In the 1970s China established its one-child per family police, which includes forced abortion and sterilizations. Those who violate the law and have more children are at risk of losing their jobs and paying heavy fines.

According to Carlos Polo of the Latin American Office of the Population Research Institute, publicizing these incidents is "the first step towards their eradication."

"Since the first visit to China in 1979 by our president, Steve Mosher, the PRI has sent numerous teams to research the application of the one-child policy," Polo told CNA.

In 2009, the PRI sent a field research team to six countries where the UN Population Fund helped China to apply the policy. Evidence of exorbitant fines, reprisals against families, persecution, forced late-abortions of babies was sent to officials in Washington, D.C. with the recommendation that financing for this population control organization be cut off.  

"Our work helped to cut millions of dollars in funding which unfortunately the Obama administration has reinstated," Polo said.