How China's one child policy works

This is further to "Abortion on decree -- the reality", to answer a reader who wanted to take the suggestion that Communist China forces women to have abortions with a large grain of salt. Here's a brief account of how the one child policy is enforced, not in the backward rural areas of China but in her most modern city.

Agent 78 is a teacher in a middle school in a very large city on China's south coast. But Agent 78 is not a classroom teacher. Rather, as a good Communist, she is a teacher administrator, whose responsibilities include keeping tabs on the other teachers to make sure they are obeying government (therefore Party) policies.

Every month, Agent 78 checks with all the female staff to find out who's pregnant, what kind of birth control they're using and so on. She keeps records of who has children, who doesn't, and who's planning to. The object is not to exceed the limit set by the state for the school district.

So what happens if somebody's pregnancy is going to push that school or that district over the limit? The unfortunate woman is reminded that there is a cash bonus for everybody if no more than a certain number of babies are born during the year. The miscreant is told that if she gives birth, not only will she suffer (by having to pay a large fine), but the whole work unit will suffer too.

Then the mother-to-be is told that it's up to her to "do the right thing"...meaning do the wrong thing and kill the baby. Don't quibble with me about whether a fetus is a baby. "Kill the baby" are Agent 78's words, not mine.

No, the poor woman is not dragged kicking and screaming into the abortuary, as described in my previous post. But the result is the same. The offending baby disappears. That's how the one child policy is enforced.

Footnote: Agent 78's brief extends to the parents of all the children who attend her school. She is not able to threaten those who want to have a second child with loss of a year-end bonus. But she reminds would-be parents that a second child goes at the bottom of the list for admission to the prestigious school. "We educate one child per family. Period." That's the policy, too.