““So…you travel around giving women checkups.†I ease gently toward the questions I really want to ask. “Yes. That’s where we’re going now.†“And what happens if you find that there are women who are pregnant who shouldn’t be pregnant?†“We try to persuade them to have an abortion.†“And if they don’t agree?†“We have to force them,†she says, pausing slightly. “You know, zhong guo ren tai duo le. There are too many Chinese people.†“But how do you force them? What if they won’t go?†“There is a department of the police in each town or county that enforces the family-planning laws. They go to the woman’s house and, if she will not come voluntarily, she is taken to the clinic by force.†Many family-planning officials in urban areas, even in small towns, know they should not talk to Westerners about such issues. They know it is a sensitive subject in the West, and one that provokes criticism of China, even though many of them do not understand why. This woman feels no such constraints. “But what if there is a woman who is eight months pregnant, and she shouldn’t be?†I ask her. “She is…†The woman makes an action with her hands in front of her stomach, an action of flushing something away. “But that’s a living child, that could be born and survive.†I gasp. The woman shrugs her shoulders and smiles faintly. “Zhong guo ren tai duo le. There are too many Chinese people.†I’d often heard of these cases. Indeed, it is common knowledge that ever since the one-child policy was instituted, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, forced abortions and sterilizations have become completely routine, even into the third trimester of pregnancy. But I had never met someone involved in the process. “So you are the person who actually has to perform that operation?†She doesn’t seem to mind my questions. “Yes,†she says, laughing slightly. “But how do you actually do it? How do you kill an eight-month-old baby?†One of the younger nurses volunteers, rather hesitantly. “You inject into the mother’s uterus, and that kills the child.†“But she still has to give birth to the child, doesn’t she?†“Yes. Sometimes the child doesn’t die in the Gifford, Rob. China Road (p. 192). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. Gifford, Rob. China Road (pp. 191-192). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. Gifford, Rob. China Road (p. 191). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. Gifford, Rob. China Road (p. 191). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. ”
