CHINA RESPONDS HARSHLY TO CRITICS OF ONE-CHILD PROGRAM

BEIJING, June 18 (LSN) – On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao attacked condemnations of the Chinese one-child policy made last week by a former abortionist in the government’s “family planning” programme. “We oppose some people using this to distort our nation’s birth control policy and politicizing this problem,”  he said. Apparently referring to the myth of “over-population,” the spokesman dismissed widespread human-rights violations in China, saying, “The Chinese government’s promotion of its birth control policy is a dual responsibility for the Chinese people and the world’s people,” he said.  Gao Xiao Duan, a former abortionist in a government “family planning office” in China,  testified before the U.S. Congress last Wednesday that China’s one-child policy has resulted in horrific human-rights abuses, including forced abortions and sterilizations,  the killing of live-born babies, the imprisonment of offending women, and the destruction of their homes.  Congressmen also heard that Gao’s population-control office paid for information on “illegal” pregnancies, and would arrest the mothers of the illegally pregnant women if the women were not found.