A woman who was eight months pregnant has been beaten, locked up and forced to have an abortion in China for breaking the country’s one-child-per-family policy, her husband says.
Watch a news report about the tragic story
The woman and her husband, who live Siming in South China, now fear for their safety after speaking out about the terrifying ordeal.
Construction worker Luo Yanquan said his wife, Xiao Aiying, was taken from their home on 10 October late in the evening.
She was detained in a clinic for three days by family planning officials.
Despite pleas from her husband, Xiao was taken to a hospital and given an injection which killed the baby.
Living
Her husband, speaking in a moving interview, described how he told officials that the baby was eight months: “That’s a living being. You can’t just get rid of a life”, he said.
Later he was told there was “no other solution but an immediate abortion”.
After rushing home to retrieve an ultrasound image of his baby which proved it was alive, he called his wife but got no answer.
“I knew something was wrong”, he said, and when he returned Xiao was surrounded by people.
Injection
Luo said: “They held her arms behind her back held her head against the wall, kicked her stomach.
“I don’t know if they were trying to give her a miscarriage right there and then”, he added.
Describing how her arms, neck and legs were injured, Luo exclaimed that an alternative had not been explored, crying: “How can you beat her?!”
Later he was told that his wife had been forced to have the injection.
Emergency
An official at the Siming district family planning commission said there was a record of Xiao having an abortion, but claimed the pregnancy was at the six month stage instead of eight, and the termination was voluntary.
The Associated Press report that the couple’s dead baby was delivered on 14 October but that emergency surgery may be needed to remove pieces of placenta still in Xiao’s uterus.
The couple was not told the sex of their baby.
It is estimated that China’s one-child policy leads to 13 million abortions every year.
Inhumane
Commenting on the story, a group which campaigns against China’s one-child-per-family policy said: “We urge all people and leaders of the free world to view this video and hear the cries of the parents and this unborn child who was simply murdered”.
Chai Ling, who founded the group called All Girls Allowed, added: “How long will the world turn a blind eye to this inhumane policy?”
Watch an extended interview with Luo Yanquan