Is NOW pro-choice or pro-abortion? 

by Wendy McElroy
web posted February 11, 2002

Horror stories of forced abortions and involuntary sterilization of
women under Communist China's one-couple, one-child policy
are too numerous to be dismissed. That is exactly what NOW
and many "feminist" voices are doing. Even worse, they want
American tax-dollars to help fund China's policies. NOW has
ceased to be pro-choice: it has become de facto pro-abortion.

At issue is the 34 million dollars that Congress recently
appropriated for the United Nations Population Fund. UNFPA
provides family planning, such as birth control and abortion
services, to developing nations including China. There, the
government's "family plan" involves coercing women to abort
pregnancies that are not State-sanctioned.

According to the Kemp-Kasten amendment in force since 1986,
a President can at his sole discretion block foreign funding that
supports coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization. President
Reagan and former-President Bush used the amendment to
block monies to the UNFPA due to its involvement in China.

When President Clinton opened the money spigot on the
grounds that UNFPA was not directly involved in forced
abortions, NOW applauded. Now that Bush is contemplating his
Presidential prerogative, they shout "foul!"

Yet the foul may have occurred in Congress. Why did it approve
the funding of family policies in China? It cannot be due to
ignorance. U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) held a well-publicized
press conference to highlight the brutality of Chinese family
policy.

Last year, witnesses from China told the U.S. Senate Committee
on Human Rights about the brutal and unsanitary coerced
abortions and how pregnant women fled into hiding. Gao
Xiaoduan, former family planning officer with the Chinese
government, testified in tears before the U.S. House of
Representatives, Once I found a woman who was 9 months
pregnant, but did not have a birth-allowed certificate. According
to the policy, she was forced to undergo an abortion surgery."
The baby was born alive, its lips sucking, its limbs stretching. "A
physician injected poison into its skull, and the child died, and it
was thrown into the trash can."

News stories of one-child atrocities abound. For example, a
recent account in the Telegraph, reported on Huaiji county -- an
area targeted for more than 20,000 abortions and sterilizations.
"Medical" personnel with portable ultrasound equipment are
expected to travel through the region, testing women, and forcing
abortions on those with "unofficial" pregnancies.

Organizations like the D.C.-based think tank, Cato Institute,
have spoken out consistently in protest. Cato includes the one-
child policy on a short list of the greatest genocides of the 20th
Century.

USFPA funding passed Congress not due to ignorance of the
facts but probably due to political pressure. In the forefront of
support for the bill were so-called pro-choice Congresswomen
like Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga) and
Connie Morella (R-Md). "Feminist" organizations like NOW and
the Feminist Majority lobbied hard to preserve this Clinton
legacy.

The "pro-choice" voices were so determined that they seemed
willing to ignore the systematic brutalization of women. After all,
the UNFPA has long exported a liberal, NOW-styled
reproductive agenda to the third world.

How do "pro-choice" advocates justify supporting a forced-
abortion policy? They tend to make one of three arguments.
First, they deny China forces women to abort. During her
keynote speech at the 1990 NOW National Convention, Molly
Yard -- then President -- baldly claimed that the Chinese
government only encouraged women to abort extra children,
using education not force. (The policy had been in active since
the early '80s.)

Second, NOW states that forced abortions are not performed in
regions where the UNFPA operates and the agency has no
direct involvement. The actual charge against the UNFPA is
complicity, however, not direct participation. For example, if the
UNFPA buys the ultrasound equipment for Huaiji county, it
would be supporting forced abortions without performing them.
Moreover, it is difficult to believe assurances that the UNFPA
will operate only in regions where abortions are voluntary: the
one-child policy recently became national law, which will be
implemented this September.

It is not clear how NOW regards the stories from brutalized
Chinese women. NOW's website and its other information
sources seem strangely silent on this matter. There are extensive
discussions of atrocities against women, such as the Taliban's
treatment of women, but discussion of China seems to focus on
the role of the UNFPA. For example, a December 2001 NOW
Legislative Update speaks of "the mistaken impression that
UNFPA performs abortions in China." It skips over the anguish
of Chinese women and the fact that the one-child policy is an
inherent denial of reproductive freedom.

The third argument for UNFPA funding involves a prime mission
of the agency -- to "stabilize" world population. Thus, in an
infamous 1989 appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Molly
Yard described the one-child policy as "among the most
intelligent in the world..." Pro-abortion zealots seem to support
not only the UNFPA funding but also the one-child policy itself.
In doing so, they are betraying both women and reproduction
"choice." If this is not the case, then now is the time for them to
speak out clearly. Unless NOW campaigns as vigorously against
China's one-child policy as it did against the Taliban's treatment
of women, it should abandon the rhetoric of reproductive
"freedom."

In a speech to the National Press Club (12/11/01), NOW
President Kim Gandy pleaded passionately to preserve
reproductive choice for her daughters. Why do Chinese
daughters deserve less?

Wendy McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com. She is the author
and editor of many books and articles, including the forthcoming
anthology Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the
21st Century (Ivan R. Dee/Independent Institute, 2002). She
lives with her husband in Canada.

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