"Coercion is Now Cloaked Behind the Rhetoric of Voluntarism".(Henry J. Hyde address)(Brief Article)(Transcript)

Editor's note. The myth that China has mended its ways and is no longer actively engaged in coercive birth-quota programs - - aided and abetted by the United Nations Population Fund - - dies hard. Testimony to the contrary was presented at the October 17, 2001, meeting of the House International Relations Committee.

Chaired by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Il.), the session was titled, "Coercive Population Control in China: New Evidence of Forced Abortion and Forced Sterilization." The following are Congressman Hyde's opening remarks.

Over 20 years ago it first became apparent that the government of the People's Republic of China was compelling women to abort their "unauthorized" unborn children. It also appeared that the government was forcing women - - and sometimes men - - to undergo sterilization when they had had the maximum number of children the government thought they should have. The usual method was intense persuasion, using all the economic, social, and psychological tools a totalitarian state has at its disposal. When these methods failed, the woman could be taken by physical force to a government birth control clinic for the abortion or sterilization.

Throughout the sordid history of this coercive program, the government of China has insisted that the program is fully voluntary. In recent years they have conceded that there may have been isolated abuses by overzealous local officials, but that these were strictly unauthorized.

In January of 1998 the United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA -- which had long had a close working relationship with PRC family planning officials -- signed a new four-year agreement with Beijing. Under this agreement, UNFPA would operate in 32 counties throughout ...