The humanitarian and technical dilemmas of population control in China.

The humanitarian and technical dilemmas of population control in China. An important experiment for mankind this century is the control ofpopulation growth by state-administered means. The necessity for somecontrols is beyond dispute from the point of view of global interests asa whole. But the outcome of their implementation and the resultingethical dilemma An ethical dilemma is a situation that will often involve an apparent conflict between moral imperatives, in which to obey one would result in transgressing another.This is also called an ethical paradox in any one particular country is an issue whichultimately concerns values reaching beyond mere economic benefits. Itbecomes an issue we mankind cannot ignore.Population controls have created two basic dilemmas. First, theethics of life is being challenged. This differs from those ethicaldilemmas, such as genetic manipulation, facing Western developedcountries; instead, it is the conflict between unnatural interference inhuman reproduction, on the one hand, and traditional values Traditional values refer to those beliefs, moral codes, and mores that are passed down from generation to generation within a culture, subculture or community. Since the late 1970s in the U.S. and basichuman rights, on the other. Second, the malady malady/mal��a��dy/ (-ah-de) disease. mal��a��dyn.A disease, disorder, or ailment.maladya disease or illness. that results fromapplying artificial economic planning economic planning,control and direction of economic activity by a central public authority. In its modern usage, economic planning tends to be pitted against the laissez-faire philosophy which developed in the 18th cent. to population control shows thatthe role of the state in population control is suspicious.An important implication of these two dilemmas is that the assumptionof international organizations, such as the United Nations and the WorldBank, for instance, and of governments of the Western countries may beturned into a mere illusion. Namely, this is the assumption that bytrusting or supporting the population policy of the Chinese government,due to the unavailability of alternatives, the explosion of the Chinesepopulation -- the hidden danger of the world -- can be solved.Let us address the first point. China does not have populationtheories like those in the West, but only a more traditional concept ofchild bearing that has become a custom for a thousand years or so. Thiscustom regards carrying on the ancestral line as being the firstpriority of life, thus it is said, "of the three kinds of unfilial Un`fil´iala. 1. Unsuitable to a son or a daughter; undutiful; not becoming a child. acts, having no descendants is the worst." Although it has beenseriously challenged since China entered the modern period whentraditional families began to disintegrate this concept still remainstoday a basic value widely among the people. The natural economy in theChinese countryside sustains the basic value; that is, underdevelopmenthas been maintained mainly by the increase of labor. Therefore, both therural economy and the concepts of the patriarchal family system stressto a great extent traditional customs such as having extended family,valuing only the male child and raising children for old-age security.thorough change of ethical practices before being able to change therural economy will undoubtedly cause strong social instability.The unprecedented ethical dilemma in human child-bearing behaviorthat exists in China stems from the following:* people make the choice to bear children based on fear;* for the first time in history, child-bearing has become an illegalaction that makes many pregnant women flee from home in large numbersand hide in wild places to escape forced abortions;* artificial distortions in demographics, that is, the practice ofdrowning infant females rages on, causing the numbers of female childrenproportionately less vis-a-vis those of males.Officially sanctioned data, i.e., the 1987 population sample survey,shows that the death rate of female infants was 47.15 percent of thetotal infants of the same age, lower than the 48.33 percent female rateof the total population, and the sex ratio of male and female infantswas 112.1 to 100. But according to private estimates by populationexperts with good knowledge of the situation in the countryside, thefemale infants that are killed plus the chaoshengyipge (infants bornbeyond the official quota) is expected to reach millions every ye inChina.All the above is widely known, but there is more seldom known to theoutside world:* the medical ethics medical ethicsThe moral construct focused on the medical issues of individual Pts and medical practitioners. See Baby Doe, Brouphy, Conran, Jefferson, Kevorkian, Quinlan, Roe v Wade, Webster decision. crisis faced by doctors, including those who arebeing forced to induce abortion for pregnant women and even to kill withdrugs some infants more than seven months old that have survived theinduced abortion in��duced abortionn.Abortion caused intentionally by the administration of drugs or by mechanical means.induced abortion;* as a consequence of the massive number of induced abortions, deadinfants are commonly used in autopsies, organ transplants and inmedicine and nutriment nutriment/nu��tri��ment/ (noo��tri-mint) nutrient (2). nu��tri��mentn.1. A source of nourishment; food.2. An agent that promotes growth or development. research;* those born without designated official sanction, privately calledblack children, lose basic living rights, including their grain ration.Their families often are compelled to leave their home villages andwander destitute, emerging in the outskirts of many Chinese cities inheicun and heitun (both meaning black villages) where those escapingforced birth control live in close quarters.The second dilemma is the effect of population control after makingpeople pay such costs. In China, the role of the state in populationcontrol has changed drastically After the Communist takeover in 1949,the regime initially carried out an open and conniving populationpolicy; Mao Zedong believed that "more people make the job easier.As a result, for twenty years TWENTY YEARS. The lapse of twenty years raises a presumption of certain facts, and after such a time, the party against whom the presumption has been raised, will be required to prove a negative to establish his rights. 2. , China experienced a continuous populationgrowth rate of over two percent. Its population doubled from 500 millionto 1 billion in 38 years, forming a population-reproduction typology typology/ty��pol��o��gy/ (ti-pol��ah-je) the study of types; the science of classifying, as bacteria according to type. typologythe study of types; the science of classifying, as bacteria according to type. ofhigh birth rate and high natural growth rate unmatched in the world.This process continued until the 1970s, when it was abruptly ended bythe sudden appearance of severe measures: the yitaihua (one family, onechild) policy carried out by the Chinese government through coercion,and the so-called national policy that stated that the growth rate ofthe population could not go beyond 1.2 percent per year. The questionbecame whether an irrational natural process can be reversedsuccessfully by another kind of extremely radical artificial measure.China's central leadership has been confronted with a basicdifficulty in the practical application of initiating population controlwithin a planned economy. It is a policy applying flawed math to managea whole population. This results from the following:* inaccuracy in the vital statistics used as the basis of planning;* the impossibility of replacing the natural speed of populationgrowth with human-imagined figures;* the spuriousness of deriving the national population growth rate byadding up that of each province as rigidly laid down by the centralgovernment.The Chinese government continues to carry out one Five-Year Planafter the next. The Seventh Five-Year Plan of Population Controlformulated in 1985 required that the population be kept at 1. 1 13billion. But the vital statistics of 1990 show that the Plan wassurpassed by 30 million. Analyzing the reasons for the failure, PengPeiyun, Director of Chinese Family Planning family planningUse of measures designed to regulate the number and spacing of children within a family, largely to curb population growth and ensure each family’s access to limited resources. Committee, said that at thetime of formulating the Seventh Five-Year Plan, about 13 million peoplewent without being counted. She also said that the Eighth Five-Year Planof Population Control and the ten-year population program formulated in1991 require that the population in China be kept under 1.3 billion bythe end of this century But, again, according to the announcement of thesurvey issued by the Chinese government in August 1995, the populationhas already reached 1.2 billion.There are two questionable factors in Peng's statement. First,it is likely that the publicized figure of 1.2 billion is still anunderestimation. Secondly, the Eighth Five-Year Plan is a continuationof the thinking of the Seventh Five-Year Plan with extremely uncertainconsequences. There is one element, however, that is known for sure.During this period, women in their prime of child-bearing age havereached 120 million or more. No matter how severe the control, it cannot suppress the figure of those born unplanned; furthermore, a harshand rigid control means an even greater disaster for the rights andinterests of women in mainland China, as well as even freewaterrepercussions repercussionsnpl → r��percussions fplrepercussionsnpl → Auswirkungen pl. This is another reason for the failure of the SeventhFive-Year Population Plan about which Peng Peiyun spoke.Meanwhile, such severe controls do not take into considerationstandards of education and basic knowledge of birth control. Facing anaudience of 260 million illiterate or semi-illiterate (22.2 7 percent ofthe total population, mostly women in the countryside), the usefulnessof the propaganda and preaching of the Chinese government is next tonothing. This factor is both the reason for the masses to resist thebirth control policy (the fundamental driving force of the resistancecomes from not only the strong and invisible traditional custom and alsoa more primitive child-bearing impulse), and, at the same time, themajor factor for the rudeness in the policy implementation. Such arudeness is expressed by the cadres at the grass-roots level carryingout the policy and the so-called "birth control work teams"dispatched into villages to impose on those policy-violators forcedabortions and economic punishment and, on all women of child-bearingage, preventative oviduct oviduct:see fallopian tube. legation legation:see diplomatic service; extraterritoriality. . Deviations in policy implementationand excessive retaliations are common occurrences.In short, to control child-bearing behavior through state planning,as if it were economic behavior, will not only fail like the pasteconomic plans in China, but also expose serious inhumanity in��hu��man��i��ty?n. pl. in��hu��man��i��ties1. Lack of pity or compassion.2. An inhuman or cruel act.inhumanityNounpl -ties1. . Its limitedcontrol effect is gained at the great expense of deprivation of basichuman rights, damage to traditional values and sacrifice of innumerablelives. In recent years in China, the newborn population has beenapproximately 21 million per year with a net increase of 14 million;this growth momentum is expected to continue towards the end of thiscentury, then reaching 17 million (equivalent to a medium-sized country)per year. According to the estimation made by the Chinese governmentitself, surpassing a population of 1.3 billion by the end of thiscentury will mean China's total population in the middle of thenext century will reach between 1.3 and 1.6 billion, or possibly even1.8 billion if it gets out of control. At that time, the Chinesepopulation issue will truly become a thorny problem for the entireworld.