Face of Abortion in China: A Young, Single Woman

Abortion is no longer just associated with married women complying with the country’s one-child policy.

The fascinating aspect of this story is that young, single women are having abortions because they are ignorant of other (safer) forms of contraception. It is not as though Chinese government is opposed to birth control. On the contrary, contraception has been a part of China's population policy since the 1970s. Unfortunately, the policy has not kept up with the changing sexual norms, and young women, who normally would have been more prone to abstain from sex, are becoming more sexually active with more partners. Without better sex education, the number of abortions have increased dramatically.

I am reminded of William LaFleur's study on abortion and Buddhism in Japan. The mizuko 水子 ("waterchild") ceremony in Japan functions as a way to "apologize" to the aborted fetus. Until recently, however, part of the problem was that Japanese women did not have access to the pill, helping to make abortion one the top birth-control methods in Japan.