President, Chinese Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries

July 20, 2014

Madam LiXiaolin

Dear Madam Li,

It is a pleasure to meet you personally and attend this exhibit: A Salute to Friendship. It is a good occasion to recall the cooperation and friendship the Chinese and American soldiers experienced together during WW11.

The purpose of this letter is to build on their example and to cooperate with you to save the lives of the precious Chinese women who suffer greatly under the One-Child Policy. I am the Founder and President of Alliance for Life International, a non-profit, non-governmental, human rights organization based in California. We seek to protect human life in all its stages because we believe that each human being is endowed with inherent human dignity which forms the basis for all human rights and fundamental freedoms.

We are extremely concerned about the very high suicide rate of women in China: it was 500 per day in 2009, now it stands at 590 only three years later. China is the only country in the world where female suicide is higher than male suicide; three times higher. Two of the cited reasons were “the traditional preference for male children, [and] birth limitation policies.” This is from the 2012 Department of State Human Rights Report on China.

I know what you must be thinking: every country has its problems. It’s their business to solve them. They need no help or condemnation from others. But Madam Li, we are all part of the human family. When one member suffers, the whole family (world) suffers. For sure we have problems we should be very concerned about: in the US, abortion for any reasons is legal throughout nine months of pregnancy. The only difference with China is that the abortion is voluntary. Our organization and many others are working hard to promote the right to life of preborn children everywhere, especially in the US. In 2011, 92 State laws were passed to limit abortion in our country. One day, we hope that preborn children will again be protected by law.

Dear Madam Li, please allow me to tell you briefly about the suffering women in China go through in relation to motherhood. May be you have experienced some of this yourself in spite of your privileged status. These are excerpts of real stories that have called our attention:

First, there are the little indignities: a female employee having to report at work which family planning method she is using and having the attendant make sure the cord is in place if she is using an intra-uterine device (IUD). This is an invasive check-up which she cannot refuse. Then you have the daily reminders in the forms of banners and posters terrorizing heron her way to work:

该流不流扒握牵牛 “If it should be aborted and is not aborted, your house will be destroyed and your cow will be taken.” A translator tells me the cow represents the pregnant woman. It can also be a real cow, the family’s property.
该扎不扎，关人作押，该流不流，折房牵牛“If you should get sterilized and you don’t, you will be detained and prosecuted. If you should abort and do not abort, your house will be torn down and your cattle will be led away.”
该环不环，该扎不扎,见了就抓“If you are supposed to wear an IUD but don’t, or are supposed to have your tubes tied but don’t, you will be arrested on sight!”

Yes, after a while, women may begin to feel like animals, without any human rights.

Men also suffer under this inhumane policy. In 2013, a man in the Jiangsu provincewas hospitalized in critical condition after suffering a skull fracture and a brain hemorrhage inflicted when more than 20 family planning officials invaded his home and beat him because he and his wife have three children, the youngest being four year old. Then they kidnapped his wife, detained her and had the family pay a ransom. How did this woman feel? Perhaps guilty that her husband had to suffer, humiliated and terrorized by family planning officials, anxious over the possibility of losing her husband, the only bread-winner,angry because other family members blame her for what happened,and worried that heavy fines will ruin them financially.

Group pressure is often applied. Per example, women who could have a second child are denied because one member of the group had an illegal child. Women carrying a second child are therefore aborted. They had been rejoicing at the prospect of having another baby but now must be aborted through no fault of their own. It is not hard to imagine a woman wanting to terminate her life after suffering so great an injustice.

Often a woman who is carrying a second child is forced by her family to undergo an ultrasound to determine the sex of her baby. If the baby is a girl, the family may force her to have an abortion, especially if the first child was also a girl. She will be told to try for a boy and it will be best for everyone. So she can never be right or left in peace to experience the joys of motherhood which should be hers.

Feng was kidnapped by twenty family planning officials, which should be renamed The Government Terrorist Squad, for the crime of being seven month pregnant with an illegal second child. She was strapped to a table, injected with a poisonous chemical, and delivered a dead baby 36 hour later, afraid, alone, and in pain, not being allowed any visitors. For some women, this is so traumatic that they suffer a total mental breakdown afterwards.

But it is far from over. Criminals are better treated than women who break the dreaded policy. Many work units require a Family Planning Certificate, a confirmation that the applicant has no illegal child. Very few employers will hire without the certificate. So there is widespread discrimination in the workplace. Criminals are better off for they are allowed to work when released from prison.

The Family Planning Bureau acts outside the law. It terrorizes the population, kidnaps women, destroys property, imposes huge fines, beats women and family members, detains them at will, isolates them from each other, prevents them from seeking legal counsel, kills preborn children mercilessly, and aborts and sterilizes women forcefully. The whole policy is an unending nightmare for all involved.

Only a few repercussions have been discussed above. What purpose does the One-Child policy serves? The policy is unnecessary. Other Asian countries such as Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea have reduced their fertility even more without this policy. In fact, only 3% of the earth’s population lives in countries that are reproducing at replacement rates. China is now permitting a second child under certain circumstances. The problem is that the policy remains in place. Infractions are punished in the same terrible manner. The policy can be safely abandoned without the fertility rate shooting upward. In 2006, in the Jiangsu province where they are allowed two children, women were asked their ideal number of children. It was 1.46, even lower than China’s Total Fertility Rate of 1.56. Once a population is used to a certain number of children, it is very difficult to change. Some countries have tried all kinds of ways to increase their fertility rate to a normal level. Very few have succeeded. Some social scientists think that a TFR below 1.50 is a point of no return. So it is urgent that China abandons the One/Two-Child Policy which hurts their women and families so much and endanger China’s future.

Dear Madam Li, thank you for allowing me to share my heart with you. The information and the cases I have discussed with you have been brought to my attention by other organizations and individuals who share a deep concern for the suffering of the Chinese people under this policy. I chose not to share their names because I would not want to infringe on their work and their privacy. The information they have gathered is invaluable.

In sisterhood, I know I also represent the cries of so many desperate Chinese women who just want to live their lives in peace. May I ask you to use your influence as a woman to bring attention to their distressing pleas?

Sincerely,

Louise Allard

Founder/President of

Alliance for Life International

P.O. Box 1314

Lake Forest, CA 92609-1314