There are at least 13 million abortions a year in China compared to 20 million live births, according to the official China Daily newspaper.
That works out to one abortion for every 1.5 births in China. The comparable statistic in Canada is one to 3.66.
The number does not include abortions performed in unregistered clinics, nor pregnancies terminated by women who used the 10 million abortion-inducing, “morning-after” pills sold per year in China.
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Once again, the “morning after” pill (Plan B) is conflated with RU486. They are not the same thing, medically or (imo) morally. Both have been around long enough now that the press should have figured out the difference. I have no idea which type of medication the author of this article is referring to or if the author herself even knows the difference.
Frightening, yes; but poor journalism doesn’t do justice to the issue.
The most frightening part of that article for me was this:
“The state refuses to allow a single mother to obtain a “hukou” or official registration for her child.”
They don’t grant citizenship to children born of single mothers!!
Once again, I am grateful to live in Canada.
Btw, Sarah, I agree with you that a distinction needs to be made between the morning after pill (which is contraceptive), and RU-486 (which is abortion-inducing).
Readers might be interested in this article:
http://bioethics.catholicexchange.com/2008/08/08/45/
The scientific evidence to date suggests that Plan B’s main modus operandi is to prevent fertilization, either by preventing ovulation, or by causing the egg that is released to be resistant to fertilization. I’d point out that the birth control pill can also prevent implantation (although it’s main mode of action is to prevent ovulation). I don’t think there is too much moral difference between taking the birth control pill and using Plan B.
Thank you for the link, Melissa. Very interesting article. I wish more people would read it!
Regarding the drug confusion, I find it interesting that RU486 is widely called, well, RU486. That isn’t it’s name – it’s the drug testing ID, used prior to to being certified as safe. The more correct name for it would be Mifepristone.
As best I can work out, the use of the old testing designation was prolonged by pro-life literature – first in print (It was licenced first in 1988), then online. Purely because a number is really scary, while mifepristone is less propaganda-worthy.
And yes, the morning after pill is *completly* different in both composition and mechanism of action.