By Damjan DeNoble

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Radical politicization, hysteria fueled violence, and stalemate defines America’s abortion debate. In turn, and owing in part to historical considerations, China’s ruling elites view the debate as composed of inherently destabilizing forces that must be precluded from interrupting the harmony of Chinese society. Where technology has made it easier to bring the basic tenets of our debate directly to the Chinese people, the Pro-Lifer’s and Pro-Choicer’s insistence on waging ideological Realpolitik has negated any such gains by overshadowing and stigmatizing some of our most important humanitarian insights into pre-natal life. In multiple ways, this has produced a world of skewed Newtonian parallels, where every action has produced either an equal or opposite reaction.

I began to explore the links between the American abortion debate and China’s abortion problems after coming across a wide swath of misconceptions about Chinese attitudes towards pre-natal life; from unrepentant Chinese and Taiwanese baby fetus eaters, to super secret Chinese government conspiracies which encourage the aborting of female babies in order to amass testosterone for a future global war.  To me, these sorts of accusations and descriptive generalizations are clear examples of modern day blood libel, an ancient practice of falsely accusing already persecuted and discriminated groups – and, primarily people of the Jewish faith – of human sacrifice and/or cannibalism. One cannot help but be acutely aware of the tactic because today blood libel has become a favorite tool of opinion leaders when they chime in on a whole host of American domestic issues.  Also, it must be pointed out, in America, Pro-lifers use it with special vigor.  It would be easy, therefore, to chalk up the extremism of the blood libel claims levied against the Chinese people as just another case of lazy reportage. But I have come to believe that the truth is more complex.  The truth involves a lot of shared history and is intimately related to America’s abortion debate.

North Koreans eat babies too...

The roots of a full explanation are to be found within the annals of antiquated history. For hundreds of years the Chinese were accused of and were, indeed, active in  some ritualistic and survival forms of cannibalism, but no more and no less than other societies during similar stages of development.  Like societies elsewhere, the Chinese were regarded as a civilized people, and cannibalism was widely regarded as a practice that the destitute resorted to in times of extreme violence and/or famine.   Then, in 1849, the Opium Wars initiated a one hundred year long decline of Chinese power, and China began to lose much of its clout.  By the end of the 19^th century China’s general decline allowed the Japanese to systematically vilify the Chinese as still active “learned cannibals” so that they could to help justify the Japanese army’s increasing presence on the mainland.  During World War II, blood libel propaganda was even being produced internally by Chang Kai Shek’s nationalist government, but it had, of course, a decidedly anti-communist twist.  Though the Japanese and Generalissimo were eventually forced out in 1949, thirty years of disastrous Mao policies and the ensuing Cold War exacerbated any previously formulated stereotypes of China under communist rule.  Incidentally, The Great Famine of the 1950s, one of those periods in Chinese history where cannibalism very likely did happen, added a Swiftly poignant grain of truth to the rumors of Chinese culinary preference.

Owing to widespread xenophobia and legalized anti-Chinese policy, America was ready to accept rumors about the Chinese more readily than most other countries from the last quarter of the 19^th century on through to 1943 when China became an official WWII ally.  Ironically, after the war, with the help of influential exiled Chinese nationalists like TV Soong, two of his three famous sisters, and their sympathizers in the United States like powerful media mogul Henry Luce, anti-Chinese sentiment morphed into anti-mainland communist Chinese sentiment.  This second wave of Chinese vilification reached its early peak right before the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, but had already started to wane by the early 1970’s with the dismissal of Taiwan from the Security Council in 1971, and Nixon’s famous visit to China in 1972.

Yup, 19th centure Uncle Sam did not take kindly to the Chinese

Quite coincidentally the fall in China-directed opprobrium and the rise of the modern Chinese state coincided with the rise of the modern abortion debate in 1973, when the decision handed down in Roe v. Wade marked the birth of the Pro-Life movement. In 1979, China reiterated its commitment to modernize by introducing the One Child Policy; a set of regulations that through sometimes prohibitively expensive fines and legal repercussions encouraged certain couples to only have one child, and implicitly advocated abortion as a stopgap measure. It is at this point, propped up against a multi-hued backdrop of antiquated and modern history that America’s abortion debate started to add to the library of misinformation concerning China.  By simultaneously managing to provide choice and to take it away, the One Child Policy successfully irked both Pro-Lifers and Pro-Choicers enough that they came together, albeit in an unexpected way.

With each passing year since 1973, the variables in the abortion debate had changed little.  Increasingly, as the political importance of abortion grew in stature, the focus went away from arguing the correctness of one’s own assertions, and went instead to proving the fallacies of the ‘other’ side.  This, in turn, required that the canvas size used to paint a picture of just how evil the ‘other side’ of the debate is be increased with each passing moment. The One Child Policy provided a billion new ways for each side to maintain these self-imposed, Ponziesque quotas.

Pro-Choice elements figured out that by presenting isolated and horrific examples of late trimester forced abortions and mandatory sterilizations as the norm for all of China, they could effectively illustrate how Pro-Choice was not necessarily Anti-Life.  Pro-Lifers, on the other hand, used these same elements to strengthen already conceived notions of anything non-Christian as necessarily heathen and blood thirsty, thereby exclamating the importance of uncompromised political victory in America.  An American public, never, on the whole, noted for its cosmopolitan outlook on the world, and already misinformed for half a dozen generation about the backwardness of the Chinese mainland and communists in general, seized upon these rumors as a factual representation of the mysterious culture from the Far East.  From 1979 on, China became a sort of gray area in the abortion debate.  Pro-Choicers and Pro-Lifers necessarily agreed that China was evil, but they actively maintained that china’s inherent evilness was propagated by views like that held by the ‘other’.  Seemingly, these claims got wilder each year.

Meanwhile, politically in America, abortion quickly became one of the Four Horsemen of the Politician’s Apocalypse along with gun control, any kind of healthcare reform, and cuts in defense budget spending.  The wise paid sound bite lip service to these issues while on the campaign trail, and then stayed away from them all together when in office.  So, it was really convenient for politicians when Pro-Lifers and Pro-Choicers came together on the evils of China and its One Child Policy.  Politicians quickly surmised that pointing the light of shame on China’s abortion policy miscues constituted a political win-win, as long as one did not get too specific on what about China’s abortion situation made it evil.  It was and continues to be today, a state sized witch hunt, which has on more than one occasion ended in embarrassment for the United States, like when, in 2001, the FBI opened up an official investigation into Chinese fetus eating.

This new element of forced political calculation on the part of American politicians dealing with the abortion issue loudly reverberated with CCP officials.  Their interpretation of this shift in American political life was starkly (and predictably) utilitarian: any sort of organized abortion debate would constitute a threat to the political unity of the country.   Debate on abortion could not be allowed to – and still has not been allowed to –  become a public matter, but would instead remain confined to debates in the offices of the National Population Planning And Family Planning Commission of China.

If further evidence of America’s influence in this matter is to be found anywhere, one need only look at other, more measured debates like global warming, personal health, and faith, which have clearly impacted the values of the Chinese people.  China’s environment is on the road to getting cleaner. The word “balanced diet” has entered the Chinese lexicon.  Chinese Christians are thought to outnumber CCP members.  And, although, environmental activists and missionaries are persecuted, there is a diversity of opinion and level of tolerance that they enjoy which cannot be said for China’s equivalent of Pro-Choice and Pro-Life activists.  Perhaps, if America’s debate was only a little more rational, to the point where the complexity of views went beyond the dogmatic, the CCP’s stance would be more subtle as well; a ceasefire by both Pro-Choice and Pro-Life gunmen would help as well.

However, it is not enough to look for evidence of American influence by analyzing the actions and reactions of just the Chinese government.  Indeed, any efforts to do so might actually constitute a needless waste of energy and obscure some of the impact that the America’s debate has had on China’s collective psyche.  The Chinese people, one must remember, are predominantly composed of non-party members.  Through satellite, pirated DVDs, internet, and more millions are paying attention to what we say and do, and how we say and do it⁶.  More importantly, if someone spends enough time in China, they soon find that the psyche of the average Chinese person is finely tuned to getting around government imposed barriers.

Nothing says abortion like pink neon lighting at a bus stop

A search of Chinese forums reveals that Chinese people openly struggle with the emotional consequences of abortion.  Forum after forum reveals candid dialogue about the repercussions that abortion has on one’s soul, relationship, and physical well being.  Certainly, the financial aspect of abortions is widely discussed due to the pervasiveness of a brazenly open abortion industry.  But, one also finds that due to the extremism of America’s abortion debate, any discussion about the abortion debate in America turns instead to its inherent brutality, religious fervor, and hypocrisy.  This is the Newtonian reflection hinted at in the first paragraph. Not only have the forces that ensure stalemate of debate in America contributed to the stifling of public debate in China, but, in true American fashion, the Chinese have come to view America’s abortion problems as the true representation of American attitudes towards abortion.  Read that sentence again, carefully, to pick out the key distinction there.

The irony of the mirror universe the American abortion debate has created is three tiered. First and most obvious, Americans criticize a large part of themselves when they criticize China’s views on abortion.  Second, it appears from the outside that our biggest abortion issues as a nation is the way we debate the abortion issue.  Third, and perhaps this is more tragic than ironic, in the end no one gets the full benefit that two simultaneous debates should produce.

The third point bares illustrating, from both sides.  Just this past July 30th the China Daily published statements by Wu Shangcun of the National Population Planning And Family Planning Commission of China, who revealed that there were thirteen million hospital abortions in 2008, and that most were being done on young, single women.  The report was unusual for its candor, and it seems to have signaled a shift in government policy to seriously start educating people about the repercussions of abortions and the importance of sexual education.

NPPFPPC Institutional Chat....I mean ChaRt

Reading it, an American cannot help but feel that these women, some of whom have had a half-dozen abortions by the time they turn thirty, are hopelessly naïve on even the most basic drawbacks of abortion.  Moral arguments aside, the chances of infertility get higher with each subsequent abortion; that fact alone should give someone pause before having unprotected sex after the first one.  If, however, the modern American abortion debate was a less violent and radicalized affair, then perhaps fifty or more years of American sex education would have had an easier time to filter down to some of those young Chinese women.  It should not be forgotten that fifty years ago Americans, on the whole, were no more knowledgeable about abortion and sexual education than China’s women of today.

On the other hand, for all of the indignation surrounding sex selective abortion in China, American’s tend to shy away from discussing their own sex selective abortion practices.  Prescreening has become routine in American hospitals.  If a developing baby is found to have Down syndrome or other recognizable genetic abnormalities, parents have the choice to keep or abort the baby.  Those who do are rarely shunned.

The moral argument in favor of legalized pre-screening assumes that a child with certain genetic abnormalities has the potential to present enough of a burden on parents and on his or her own mental well being.  Therefore terminating a pregnancy can be viewed as the humane thing to do.  The problem with this is that it can be applied to girls in China.  For a lot of poor parents who already have two or three girls, having a third of fourth one appears to them to be a hardship that would likely hurt them and the child.  If the inductive logic holds, can it not also be true that sex selective abortion for the poor Chinese peasant is every bit a rationalized, humane decision as gene selective abortion is for the American couple?  I cannot help but think that with pre-screening abortions and genetic manipulation currently veering a bit out of control in the United States, that China’s thirty years of experience with pre-screening regulation would have something useful for us Americans to learn from.

Today, twenty years after the end of the cold war, and on the eve of a decade that promises to see history take off again, the proliferation of modern technologies and wiki-world information has made it possible for the people of these America and China to understand one another better than ever before.  These same advancements have also made it easier to become misinformed, and to be poorly informed on more, than ever before.  As the world progresses, each arable speck of land will become more densely populated, and whether we like it or not, one day the question of population management is going to loom larger than any other question we face.  America, its roots steeped in Puritan history and genocidal misstep, has learned a lot about the value of human life and has all the information necessary to play the role of the humanistic voice of future discussion.  Meanwhile, China has, for the past one hundred and fifty years dealt with the problems of overpopulation, occupation, and mass starvation, which have taught it a lot about how to confront the practical issues of population planners.  Together they can do a lot.  Maybe the first step is to stop doing all the things that produce nothing, so that the needed discussion can start with something.

END

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Notes:

¹There does appear to have been an ancient abortion debate though I am unfamiliar with it

² There are two prizes at stake in this conflict, one political and the other ideological.  The political prize is up in the air because either side can now lay claim to a law supporting their position; Pro Choicers to Roe vs Wade, and Pro Lifers to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.  On the other hand, the ideological prize is there for the taking and claiming it means forever defining an important component of America’s identity.  Consequently, defining America’s identity means influencing policy so that it conforms to that identity, much like our identity as capitalists influences policies surrounding health insurance.  Domestic policy, however, is just the tip of the iceberg.  In the end game, to truly justify one’s view of ‘how things work’, related to matters transcendent or otherwise, America must also influence the identity of the rest of the world because, in theory, most Pro-Lifers/Choicers believe that they are fighting a battle that is bigger than just themselves.

³Pro-Choice of Pro-Life, either position can be argued from a secular basis.

⁴ I should also mention the unrepentant Chinese baby fetus eaters as reported by Taiwanese in Hong Kong news publications so that one does not get the impression that only America is prone to blood libel of China

⁵None of the Japanese propagandists were more vicious and calculated in their attacks than Kuwabara Jitsuzo

⁶ Once made aware of its presence, you may notice how in the modern day blood libel and stereotyping is being adopted when writing about a range of China issues  like abortions and topics having to do with abortions (like the One Child Policy and China’s Missing Women)because  many journalists, and American journalists in particular,  find it easier to write a sensational story about China than a more rational and informed one.  (However, to be fair, blood libel has become a favorite tool of Western politicians and journalist on a whole host of American domestic issues, though in America pro-lifers use it with special vigor (fast forward to 1:30).) And, just to be clear, a sensational story is not simply one that criticizes the CCP or certain aspects of Chinese society.  Indeed, informed reports tend to, at time, present a much more damning case for criticism.  Rather, what distinguishes the sensational is the need to paint the Chinese as a wholly different species of human – the inhuman.  This is especially ironic today considering that the Chinese tend to view themselves first as a race and only then as a nation, a condition that  negatively impacts  their own societal prejudices.

⁷ Consumerism, dietary norms, sexual promiscuity, faith, and discrimination are some of the most typical values adopted by the Chinese, despite what the government may want.

⁸ The power of the CCP lies in its ability to sensor the what and the who, but not the how – the Great Firewall can sensor a sensitive website, but by the time they do the spirit and the central ideas of the message has already been passed on.  Unfortunately for the government, game changing ideas are composed of the how.  With close to three hundred million internet users the government is fighting a losing battle since every day thousands of users are learning of ideas whose time has come.

⁹ Undoubtedly there are dark corners of the country where gangs of evil men still forcibly sterilize young, defenseless women.  Claiming, however, that this is representative of China, is like claiming that the what goes on inside the compound of Warren Jeff’s Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is representative of American life in general.

¹⁰Understandably, China under Hu JinTao is sensitive to any instances of modern day blood libel, and to the more common instances of international criticism having to do with China’s human rights record.  It can be argued that both criticisms are at times used to promote the same insinuation – that the Chinese are something less than human.  But, whereas in the past this sort of criticism tended to prevent Chinese leaders from seeing past their party’s perceived sense of tarnished honor and towards the more imminent needs of their population, increasingly today, and with each passing year since opening thirty years ago, China’s technocrats have been less willing to let pride get in the way of progress.  Instead, China’s leaders have only increased their desire to learn from various world wide debates .

¹¹To be clear, reasons for the repression of abortion debate are not solely to blame on America.  A part of the repression is certainly attributable to codified state suppression of organized groups and the One Child Policy itself.