Abortion of Girls on the Rise in Communist China.(Brief Article)

Xiao Wei and her family had a huge celebration when her son was born. The poor family in Anhui Province in east China has grand dreams for their son: expensive kindergarten, a good college, and a successful life. But these dreams could only come true after Xiao Wei lost her first two children (one was given away and one was aborted) because they were girls.

Xiao Wei's story, reported in the Irish Times, is a sad but common example of the realities of life under Communist China's brutal one-child policy. Under the policy, families must have only one child or face heavy fines and public condemnation.

Chinese parents rely on their male children to take care of them as they age. Their female children are expected to marry and become part of their husbands' families when they grow up. So if a woman can have only one child, she faces enormous pressure to make sure it is a boy.

"A woman without a son will be cursed by her mother-in-law and laughed at by the village," Xiao Wei told the Irish Times. Her second daughter was aborted after an ultrasound scan showed she was female, a practice that is routine in China.

Sex-selection abortions are officially illegal in China, but the New York Times found that the law is rarely enforced. In eastern Guangdong province, an ultrasound scan costs the equivalent of $4, and an abortion of "an unwanted female can be arranged the same day for the equivalent of $15 to $120," the Times reported.

Since the unborn baby needs to be larger before the sex can be determined, most of these abortions occur in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, according to the Times.

Even families that violate the one-child policy usually make sure that their second child is male. A study in a ...