The BBC reports that Feng Jiamei, a 23 year old pregnant mother of one from Zhenping county in Shaanxi was taken to a hospital and forced to have an abortion. She was seven months pregnant, and couldn't afford the $6,000 for having a second child. The Chinese family planning bureau told local media that the mother agreed to the "labor induction", but her husband Deng Jiyuan told a different story. Deng Jiyuan said that five men broke into the family's rented home and administered a lethal injection to the woman's uterus. At the same time, they forced her to sign an agreement. Chinese authorities have announced that they are carrying out an official investigation, and report they are verifying the authenticity of both the picture and the story.
Meanwhile, the lethal injection and men coming into the home to take the "illegally pregnant woman" to a hospital are very much consistent with previous reports about forced abortions in China. Forced abortions The Chinese one-child policy is nothing new. The family planning bureau's tendency to force women who can't pay the fine for a second child into abortions has reached western news outlets already, too. Remember news about a forced abortion for an eight-month pregnant woman last year? The fact that forced abortions are almost routine in China doesn't make this one family's tragedy any less terrible, and if you see the picture that's been circulating around the web, you're guaranteed to cry. I thought about publishing the picture in question here on our blog, but it's so upsetting that I don't think that's a good idea. Those who are really interested in seeing the photograph can easily locate it by searching for "Feng Jiamei" on Google Images.
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