<story><title>China to begin two-child policy</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-34665539</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kailuowang</author><text>Just to make it clear, these types of enforcement are not norms. The law never suggested such enforcement. The law is that you get a financial fine if you have more than one child,  that&amp;#x27;s it. It&amp;#x27;s actually against the law to force any kind of abortion. That being said, in some rural area, some officials maybe so greedy to make achievement for their &amp;quot;career&amp;quot; that they &amp;quot;enforce&amp;quot; this policy by breaking the law.&lt;p&gt;Some of the examples you listed have only one report. And it&amp;#x27;s policy that lasted almost 40 years in a country with a billion people.</text></item><item><author>zero_iq</author><text>The policy itself isn&amp;#x27;t cruel or brutal, but the enforcement can be terrible.&lt;p&gt;Brutal and cruel acts include:&lt;p&gt;* Killing of child immediately after birth&lt;p&gt;* Killing of child whilst being born, e.g. in birth canal during birth&lt;p&gt;* Termination of pregnancy as late as 8.5 months&lt;p&gt;* Forced abortions (incorporating kidnapping and assault)&lt;p&gt;All of these things have happened routinely as part of enforcement of the &amp;quot;one child&amp;quot; policy in China and have been widely reported on by human rights organisations. See for example: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;One-child_policy#Human_rights_violations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;One-child_policy#Human_rights_...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The policy has also encouraged infanticide&amp;#x2F;gendercide, corruption, child abandonment, neglect, and abuse.</text></item><item><author>vincentkriek</author><text>Brutal and cruel? I agree it&amp;#x27;s a severe limit on the personal freedom but China doesn&amp;#x27;t value personal freedom as highly as the west does. Brutal and cruel is not the right terms for this in my opinion, you can have a beautiful, rich and fullfilling life with 2 children or less. You can plan to have just two children (up to some point).&lt;p&gt;Also, I think it could benefit the earth if more countries would limit children.</text></item><item><author>sethbannon</author><text>From the article &amp;quot;All couples will now be allowed to have two children&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;So it seems China isn&amp;#x27;t so much ending its one-child policy, as augmenting it by one to a two-child policy. This means the brutal and cruel enforcement will continue, only it will kick in at the third child instead of at the second.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>moistgorilla</author><text>&amp;gt; Just to make it clear, these types of enforcement are not norms&lt;p&gt;Back up your statement with a citation please. Considering that they explicitly made forced abortions of these kinds illegal (although this is hardly enforced) implies that it was a big enough problem the government needed to step in.</text></comment>
<story><title>China to begin two-child policy</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-34665539</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kailuowang</author><text>Just to make it clear, these types of enforcement are not norms. The law never suggested such enforcement. The law is that you get a financial fine if you have more than one child,  that&amp;#x27;s it. It&amp;#x27;s actually against the law to force any kind of abortion. That being said, in some rural area, some officials maybe so greedy to make achievement for their &amp;quot;career&amp;quot; that they &amp;quot;enforce&amp;quot; this policy by breaking the law.&lt;p&gt;Some of the examples you listed have only one report. And it&amp;#x27;s policy that lasted almost 40 years in a country with a billion people.</text></item><item><author>zero_iq</author><text>The policy itself isn&amp;#x27;t cruel or brutal, but the enforcement can be terrible.&lt;p&gt;Brutal and cruel acts include:&lt;p&gt;* Killing of child immediately after birth&lt;p&gt;* Killing of child whilst being born, e.g. in birth canal during birth&lt;p&gt;* Termination of pregnancy as late as 8.5 months&lt;p&gt;* Forced abortions (incorporating kidnapping and assault)&lt;p&gt;All of these things have happened routinely as part of enforcement of the &amp;quot;one child&amp;quot; policy in China and have been widely reported on by human rights organisations. See for example: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;One-child_policy#Human_rights_violations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;One-child_policy#Human_rights_...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The policy has also encouraged infanticide&amp;#x2F;gendercide, corruption, child abandonment, neglect, and abuse.</text></item><item><author>vincentkriek</author><text>Brutal and cruel? I agree it&amp;#x27;s a severe limit on the personal freedom but China doesn&amp;#x27;t value personal freedom as highly as the west does. Brutal and cruel is not the right terms for this in my opinion, you can have a beautiful, rich and fullfilling life with 2 children or less. You can plan to have just two children (up to some point).&lt;p&gt;Also, I think it could benefit the earth if more countries would limit children.</text></item><item><author>sethbannon</author><text>From the article &amp;quot;All couples will now be allowed to have two children&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;So it seems China isn&amp;#x27;t so much ending its one-child policy, as augmenting it by one to a two-child policy. This means the brutal and cruel enforcement will continue, only it will kick in at the third child instead of at the second.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pjungwir</author><text>&amp;gt; in some rural area&lt;p&gt;I spent a summer in Beijing in 1998 and knew a young lady whose unborn baby was forcibly killed. So I don&amp;#x27;t buy &amp;quot;in some rural area&amp;quot;.</text></comment>