Last month, those of us concerned with reproductive rights were aghast at the story of Feng Jianmei, a 22-year-old Chinese woman who was forced to have an abortion. She and her husband, who have a five-year-old daughter, could not afford the $6,300 fine for violating the country’s one-child policy, so family planning officials forced her into having an abortion. Her husband, Den Jiyuan, told a Chinese newspaper that she was hooded, abducted by being pushed into a car, and forcibly injected with some substance that terminated her pregnancy at seven months along. Her “consent” to the abortion was someone inking her fingerprint onto a document against her will. According to the Guardian, forced abortions and forced sterilizations are technically illegal in China, but they still occur. Last year, a 37-year-old woman named Ma Jihong reportedly died from a forced abortion gone wrong. Keep reading »
