[The Epoch Times, February 24, 2022](Reported by Liang Yuyan, Xu Yiyang, Wang Jiayi, reporters from The Epoch Times Special Department) In the face of the sharp drop in the birth rate in China, the CCP authorities have introduced a number of policies that simply encourage fertility, but they are all difficult to achieve. The population’s willingness to have children continues to decline. However, the CCP has not reviewed and corrected its mistakes from its ever-changing national policy of anti-humanity, but it is still issuing some bizarre new regulations, which are beyond the understanding of the outside world.
The new document issued by the Chinese Health Care Association is hotly debated by all parties
At the end of January this year, the Family Planning Association of the Communist Party of China (hereinafter referred to as the Family Planning Association), which is under the supervision of the State Council of the Communist Party of China, released the “Key Points of Work of the China Family Planning Association in 2022” (hereinafter referred to as “Key Points of Work”).
It mentioned that in 2022, “focus on solving the outstanding reproductive health problems of adolescents, people of childbearing age and other specific groups, carry out special actions for abortion intervention for unmarried people, and reduce unintended pregnancy and abortion among adolescents.”
This kind of formulation has especially attracted the attention of the outside world, and “intervention in abortion of unmarried people” has also become a hot search.
But this is not the first time the CCP Health Association has deployed work on the grounds of reproductive health. In January last year, the 2021 “Work Points” issued by the Family Planning Association had proposed to implement reproductive health promotion actions, and pointed out that “focusing on solving outstanding reproductive health problems of adolescents, people of childbearing age and other specific groups”.
In August last year, Wang Pei’an, deputy director of the Population, Resources and Environment Committee of the CPPCC National Committee and secretary of the Party Group of the Chinese Family Life Association, said that the increasingly serious problem of adolescent reproductive health has posed a “major threat” to national population security.
The Epoch Times reporter compared the two-year “Work Points” of the CCP Health Office and found that the main points in 2021 are only to “solve outstanding problems in the reproductive health of adolescents, people of childbearing age and other specific groups”; while this year’s main points further put forward the requirements. Intervention in “Abortion for Unmarried People” and “Reduction of Unintended Pregnancy and Abortion in Adolescents”.
This is not just policy propaganda, but the implementation of special work for delineated groups of people. Although the current “intervention” is still at the level of administrative instructions issued by Zhongnanhai to family planning departments at all levels, and has not yet been upgraded to a new national policy, this change has already made the outside world see the CCP’s barbaric return to the old road of forcing family planning.
What does the CCP’s new statement on the population issue mean? Zhang Tianliang, a political commentator based in the United States, said in an interview with The Epoch Times that now that China is facing a population crisis, the CCP wants its citizens to have more children. Teenagers can easily get pregnant if they don’t take the necessary steps, and this policy is more about reducing the number of abortions so that children can be born as quickly as possible.
Zheng Jie, a Japanese political commentator, told The Epoch Times reporter very directly that “Key Points of Work” uses the excuse of reducing unintended pregnancy and abortion among teenagers and improving the reproductive health of the masses. Under these circumstances, this is a signal that the CCP will take coercive measures to change the status quo.
It is reported that the “Key Points of Work” in 2022 has been printed and distributed to the Family Planning Association of all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government, cities under separate state planning, the Family Planning Association of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, various departments of the Family Planning Association of the Communist Party of China, and the “Life” magazine, etc.
Out-of-wedlock pregnancies and high abortion rates are a headache for the CCP
An article published in the “Chinese Journal of Practical Gynecology and Obstetrics” in 2021 stated that induced abortions in China have three characteristics: a large number, a high proportion of repeated abortions, and a large proportion of young unmarried women.
Wu Shangchun, a researcher at the Research Institute of the National Population and Family Planning Commission of the Communist Party of China, said as early as 2014 that in China, “there are about 10 million abortions a year, and 13 million at high times, which is a huge number.” Among them, women who have no children accounted for nearly half. .
The relevant person in charge of the Chinese Health Association also admitted: “Several surveys have shown that among women who have induced abortions, the proportion of young, unmarried, and childless women is increasing, and the proportion of repeated abortions and high-risk abortions within the age of 20 is significantly higher. The number of abortions for unmarried adolescents under the age of 24 accounts for more than 40% of the total number of abortions in China, and 19% of them have experienced multiple abortions.”
The Chinese academic journal “Cultural Landscape” recently published an article titled “To what extent has the Family Planning Association deliberately tightened up induced abortions in China?” .
The article asks, to what extent is the current trend of unmarried pregnancy in China that requires direct intervention by the relevant departments?
According to the article, scholar Xu Li’s research on seven provinces and cities in China found that 16.8% of premarital pregnancies occurred between 1987 and 1991. In 2013, among migrant couples aged 15 to 59, the proportion of unmarried pregnancies was as high as 30.5%; a survey in 2011 found that among the new generation of migrant workers who were married and had children born after 1980, the first child was 30.5%. The proportion of premarital pregnancy is as high as 42.7%.
The article also stated that unmarried pregnancies are more likely to occur in large urban populations. Some studies believe that the peak age of unmarried pregnancy is around 20 years old, and some believe that unmarried pregnancy has a clear trend of “lower age”.
In the calculation of 396,022 live births, it was found that births out of wedlock accounted for 8.96% of all live births.
Moreover, the year-on-year increase in the abortion rate has caused the authorities to experience the consequences of decades of harsh family planning and forced abortions—the loss of hundreds of millions of people. China’s population is now severely aging and the fertility rate continues to decline, leading the CCP authorities to announce in October 2015 that it would relax the policy of having a second child; in June 2021, the three-child birth policy was implemented, and corresponding benefits were introduced to encourage childbirth.
Although the policy has changed 180 degrees from “trying to give birth as little as possible” to “encouraging more births”, it has not changed the people’s sluggish desire to have children.
Regarding the “focus on solving the outstanding reproductive health problems of adolescents, people of childbearing age and other specific groups” mentioned in the “Key Points of Work”, the People’s Health Association recently introduced to mainland media the so-called “valuable experience” accumulated by “intervention” in adolescent abortion. ”, the seriousness of the situation can also be found.
The Family Planning Association claims that their “Peer Way” program for college and high school students spreads sexual health knowledge to their peers, avoids unprotected sex, and reduces unwanted pregnancy, induced abortion, and STD/AIDS infection.
The data provided by it shows that by February 2022, the project has covered more than 700 colleges and universities and more than 10,000 middle schools across the country, with more than 7 million students participating each year.
An evaluation of four colleges and universities in Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province shows that the awareness rate of contraceptive knowledge among college students has increased from 43.2% to 85.2%, and the awareness rate of AIDS knowledge has increased from 37.8% to 77.6%. The proportion of abortions among unmarried young women aged 24 dropped from 35% to 25%.
In August last year, Wang Pei’an, Party Secretary of the Family Planning Association, even mentioned that the unmarried people should improve their access to contraceptives, abortion, and reproductive health counseling and technical service systems.
In order to increase the fertility rate, provinces have introduced a variety of incentive measures
According to data, the number of newborns in China in 2017 was only 17.28 million, and by 2020 it will drop to 10.035 million, showing that the reduction in the birth rate of newborns has become a major trend.
In August 2021, the National People’s Congress of the Communist Party of China passed a decision to revise the population and family planning law to liberalize the three-child policy. However, the total number of newborns in that year was still 10% lower than that in 2020, and even the number of newborns in individual regions decreased by 30%. Some population experts estimate that China’s newborn birth rate will be close to 0% in 2021.
Faced with the severe decline of the new population, Chinese provinces have revised their population and family planning regulations in accordance with the new family planning law and introduced various incentives to give birth to three children.
According to a report in November last year by Xinhua, the official CCP media, as of November 28, 2021, more than 20 provinces had initiated or completed amendments to the law, offering measures such as extending maternity leave, increasing parental leave, and issuing subsidies.
Because it does not involve government funding, increasing maternity leave to encourage childbirth has become mainstream. Zhejiang Province has made it clear that women who have one child will have 60 days of maternity leave, and 90 days of maternity leave if they have two or three children. Shaanxi Province will give another half-year incentive leave to female employees who have given birth to three children. Shanghai, Zhejiang, Heilongjiang and other places stipulate that before the child turns 3 years old, both husband and wife can take “parental leave” every year, while in Anhui it is relaxed to before the age of 6.
Shihezi City, Xinjiang Autonomous Region is willing to pay subsidies, specifically 500 yuan (about $79) or 1,000 yuan (about $158) per child per month for families with second or third children. In Panzhihua City, Sichuan Province, in addition to providing free hospital delivery services for pregnant women with household registration in the city, families with two or three children are also given 500 yuan per month per child.
At the beginning of February 2022, during the Chinese New Year period, the authorities of Zhejiang Province made another big move – the provincial health and Health Commission issued the “Questionnaire on the Cost of Raising Infants and Young Children Under 3 Years Old in Zhejiang Province”: a monthly subsidy of 1,000 yuan, if you are willing to have a second child /Third child?
Previously, the Hainan Provincial Health and Health Commission also issued a similar questionnaire. It asked, assuming that the government subsidizes 500 yuan per month until the child is three years old, would you like to have a second child/third child?
American independent commentator Han Wu told the Epoch Times reporter that this is still a problem of the CCP trying to save China’s low fertility rate. On the surface, it looks very humane, but in fact it does not respect my wishes. “In fact, it is to encourage young college students. To get pregnant at reproductive age, to have children”.
Han Wu said that the population rate of the CCP is facing a huge crisis, and the population rate of the labor force exists all over the world. However, as a country with a large population, the CCP actively encourages the fertility policy, and the fertility rate is still decreasing year by year. In less than 10 or 20 years, the population problem will completely bring down the CCP. Therefore, the CCP is particularly anxious, and its population policy is a major decision.
From family planning to birth, the divorce rate has also been pushed up
On the first day of work after the Chinese New Year in 2022, there will be long queues at civil affairs bureaus in many places, ushering in the peak period of divorce.
On February 7, a woman working in the Civil Affairs Bureau in Peixian County, Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province said that she was surprised by the people who came to apply for divorce on the first day of work in the new year. The registered staff have little to do.
According to statistics from the Zhengzhou Civil Affairs Bureau of Henan Province, on the seventh day of the Lunar New Year (February 7), 215 pairs of marriages were registered and 130 pairs were registered for divorce.
On February 8, a civil affairs bureau in Shandong welcomed a large number of couples who were preparing for divorce, and the four divorce windows were full.
In order to reduce the divorce rate, the authorities have added a “divorce cooling-off period” to the divorce proceedings from January 1, 2021. Within 30 days after the cooling-off period expires, both parties must jointly apply to the marriage registration authority for the issuance of a divorce certificate; It is deemed that the application for divorce registration has been withdrawn. But the move had little effect.
Comparing the past and the present, from the dehumanizing family planning slogan of “Let it be brought down, it means it can’t be born”, to the slogan of “born, raised, it can’t be left down…”, the CCP has made dozens of efforts in population control. During the years, a vicious circle against humanity was drawn.
In response to the CCP’s new policy, Zhang Tianliang believes that young people will cause some social problems, and both parties have no financial ability or energy to raise their children. These policies of the CCP are actually based on their own needs.
Zheng Jie, a Japanese commentator, told The Epoch Times that he was really worried about young people in China after reading the 2022 “Work Points” of the Chinese Life expectancy. “The first point of this point is to strengthen the CCP’s overall leadership over the work of the Family Planning Association. The CCP guided the one-child policy more than 30 years ago, causing many family tragedies, and now there is not even a single word of apology. The world has never seen such a thing. Unreasonable government.”
Editor in charge: Lian Shuhua