Gifford’s chapter on abortion in China was such a hard chapter to read. I don’t know if it is because my siblings are adopted. My siblings birth-mothers chose to put them up for adoption instead of aborting them. There is ways their government could prevent abortion. They have the opportunity to change to put  children in foster homes for adoption. Gifford sat on a bus going to a distant town. Gifford told a lady next to him that he had two children. Another lady sitting on the bus tells Rob, “It’s not right to have more than two children.” She then implies it again to Rob. This lady works as a doctor for the Family Planning organization. Her job consists of going to towns where woman intend on having another child. While the lady talks about her job, Gifford asks a series of questions. The first question he asks her is,

Gifford:” And what happens if you find that there are women who are pregnant who shouldn’t be pregnant?”

Doctor:” We try to persuade them to have an abortion.”

Gifford:” And if they don’t agree?”

Doctor:” We have to force them. You know, zhong guo ren tai duo le. There are too many Chinese people. There is a department of the police in each town or county that enforces the family-planning laws. They go to the women’s house and, if she will not come voluntarily she is taken to the clinic by force.”

Gifford:” But what if there is a woman who is eight months pregnant, and she shouldn’t be?”

Doctor: “She is…The woman make an action with her hands in front of her stomach, and action of flushing something away.”

Gifford: “But that’s a living child, that could be born and survive.”

Doctor:”The woman shrugs her shoulders and smiles faintly. There are too many Chinese people.” “You inject into the mother’s uterus, and that kills the child. Sometimes the child doesn’t die in the womb and is still alive when it is born. But, we leave it….and it…”

A man from behind Gifford under his breath says, “Zhong guo ren huai tou le, Chinese people are too evil.” All of her answers are so unethical and even make a person say that his countries people are evil. I do not know how others feel but his man believes that the people of his country his are broken. These people oppress the government’s rules on others and create no room for ethics or morality. This doctor is a mother herself, and her assistant is also a mother. Gifford talks about looking at this woman who does not seem to be evil or like she’s taken a life. I know that if the government didn’t have this regulation her job as a doctor would be to help a life instead of take it away.

A couple weeks before reading this chapter an article was posted. In the article there were pictures of a lady who had given birth and her baby lay next to her dead. Her baby wasn’t dead because of complications but simply because they killed it. When Ramon and I went to Taiwan it was amazing to see families of more than one. They have the freedom to have children, the freedom of religion and I truly saw a different lifestyle in Asia. There are so many women in the world who want to have children and can’t. Then there are woman in China who can have children and they have to be aborted. It makes me disappointed that the government hasn’t tried to find another solution to this situation.