Chinas "one child Policy"

Emma - posted on 04/07/2010

I live in Africa and i think that bringing in a policy of 2 kids your done would help a lot.
@ Lyndsay You think you get sick of seeing the feed starving children ads on TV
i have to turn people down on a daily basis who come begging at my door with there kids asking for money to "buy Food"
Call me a cold heartless bitch if you want but i point blank don't give and hear is why.
One day i had a woman and two small kids ring my bell the woman asked please can she have R10 to buy some bread for her children as they where hungry,
I felt bad and being a mom thought to myself if my kids where Hungary i would do what i needed to to feed them even beg if need be. So i say ill be right back, as i had no cash on me but had just done the monthly shop, i garbed a shopping packet and started to fill it with far more than R10 worth of food, Bread, milk, apples, cheese, ect ect ended up being around R100 worth of food. I go back to my gate and say to the woman hear you go this should help, I shit you not she opened the bad looked inside handed it back to me and asked again for cash.

Where as i will help someone if that don't want a hand out i also have people coming to ask for work and if i have something that needs doing like washing the car ect they do it and get paid, those guys i have a great deal of respect for as they are doing it for them self, i buy a lot of stuff from the guys that sell on the road side, coat hangers, bin bags, fruit as they have the right attitude.

Lyndsay - posted on 03/06/2010

My answer is birth control. China, for one, is not necessarily a poor country and I'm sure could do a little more in the way of making their one-child policy a bit more humane. Example, free sterlizations after the first child. Take what you get and move on.

As for Africa... and I warn you all that my opinion is actually very harsh, so if you can't handle it don't bother reading (and don't send me hate mail).. I think that if we really want to help them we should stop trying to treat and coddle all of the Africans with HIV or AIDS and just let them die, then focus on the remaining people and how you can help them. Again, where my answer would be birth control. I know of several clinics within my own city alone where I can go to get free condoms. I even know of a condom van that will drive to you and drop you off a bag of condoms, absolutely free. If there are so many methods available to us in developed nations (which is where the charitable organizations are), I don't see how this is even an issue. Except that people think it's cruel, or whatever, to let sick people pass on and limit the amount of births in a nation. Well.. for me, this is not about one woman's right to have as many children as she pleases. It is not even about a family's sense of loss and desperation, or anything like that. It is about the total wellbeing of the nation, and what can be done to make life better for the population as a whole.

Jennifer - posted on 03/06/2010

I also must add though that the one child policy has now been changed to a two child policy in most areas of China. As bescribed below (taken from wikipedia):

Two-child policy in China
As the One-child policy begins to near its next generation, one adult child is left with having to provide support for his or her two parents and four grandparents. This leaves the older generation with more of a dependency on retirement funds or charity in order to have support. If personal savings, pensions, or state welfare should fail, then the most senior citizens would be left entirely dependent upon their very small family or neighbors for support. If a child cannot care for their parents and grandparents, or if that child cannot survive, the oldest generation could find itself destitute. To combat this problem, some provinces allow families where each parent was an "only child" to have two children. In 2007 all provinces but Henan[citation needed] adopted this new adaptation. This is called a four-two-one because of each couple having only one child each.

I knew this as it had just changed when I was doing my GCSE geography.

Jennifer - posted on 03/05/2010

Amber - Same here, I've never been interested in going out drinking at clubs and such. I moved out at the age of 17 when my then fiance and I found a flat =] We got married in June 2008 and moved into our house in May 2009 when I was 3 months pregnant.

Aww that's lovely, it took me 18 months to fall pregnant, I was 1 week away from beginning fertility treatment - I have PCOS and have known since the age of 13 when I was put on the pill for it. I stopped the pill and my periods just didn't come back. I needed a HSG but it required to be done on the first day of my period so they had to give soemthing to induce a period and after that period I became pregnant =]

For me it's what we wanted and I'm glad I took the choice to have Logan over university. In the UK schoolings different we go to school until the age of 16 then you can go to sixth form or college then onto university. Loads of girls are getting pregnant and they never complete even GCSEs!

Amber - posted on 03/05/2010

Jennifer-- up it was a little weird at first, i mean i grew up fast not bc i had to but bc it just felt right. i never did like going out all night, drinking and hanging out w/ friends. I moved out of my home when i was 17, I stayed in close contact with my mom and family but they are jsut alittle to stressful for me. I got preggers on my 18th birthday exzactly, and 9 months later gave birth to my son Kohan. I think that the hardest part when he was born was trying not to call myself sissy.. I would catch myself telling this little baby to "hold on sissy will change it in a minute." haha. other then that I think being a teen mom has helped me in that i know what is important and the things i really want in life such as owning our truck or purchising a home. But it has made alot of things hard like i have always dreamed of going to collage and becoming a special ed teacher but i had to drop out of collage because of money. I just would love to let all of them girls that are going out there and getting preggers at 15-16 and let them know that it is not cool, and that there is so much more to life at that age. I know way 2222 many girls that have babys in high school, and eather loose them to the state or just drag them around to party to party with them..

(i would just like to point out that i WAS on the pill when i became preggers)

Christy - posted on 03/05/2010

i am torn on my feelings of this policy. on the one hand, i find it to be the best measure any country has taken to do their part to make a turn around in the negative statistics of their population. if you only have one child you will most likely be able to afford to take them to the doctor whenever they need it, buy the healthier food whether or not it's more expensive, pay for higher education, etc. and that makes me think "yeah great, every country where more than 75% of the country lives in extreme poverty should do this!".



on the other hand...i had my heart set on having a little girl all my life, i even decided that i would try 3 times to get a little girl if i had boys at first. i would have loved the boys but my life wouldn't have been complete till i had a little girl. if i had been told from the beginning that i was only allowed to have 1 child and i found out i was having a boy i would have been devastated. in China, things are exactly the opposite of that. everyone wants a boy so they can be taken care of in the long run. eventually, as has been said before, the country will be so unbalanced that there won't be enough females to go around to all the males. maybe if they had a 2 child policy things wouldn't be so bad. they wouldn't feel like they had to immediately either abort or adopt out their daughters because they would have another chance at having a son. not that it would entirely eliminate the issue, there's plenty of people who have tons of girls and no boys but i think that it would be a step towards a middle ground.

Geralyn - posted on 03/05/2010

Alison, that is interesting that there are regions of China that do not enforce the policy.



In response to the comments in favor of the policy because people shouldn't have kids they can't afford, the policy doesn't just apply to the poor. The policy applies across all levels of income, classes, etc. I do not know whether the enforcement is affected by money or class though.... Like most things, it may very well be....



I remember reading that one "exception" to the policy is multiple births, so some women who are not infertile are pursuing IVF to increase the chances of twins. They would get to keep both.

Rosie - posted on 03/04/2010

while i do think china needs to control their population, the whole leaving your female child to die in a gutter, or given up for adoption simply based on her sex pisses me off. china's cultural differences regarding females aside, i think something needs to be done, what that is-i have no clue. i'm not really into telling people they can't have children, i know i'd be pissed as hell if something like that were implemented in the united states.
it's times like this that i wish i was a genius and could solve all the worlds problems. sigh.

Lady - posted on 03/04/2010

In China is it not the tradition that the parents go to live with the oldest male child - that's why when only allowed one child everyone wanted a boy because he would take care of them when they were old where as a girl gets married and takes care of her husbands parents. That's why there were so many unwanted girls. The traditions of the country didn't fit in with ruling, it always seemed rather stupid to me.

Jenny - posted on 03/04/2010

I would alter the policy to be two children because if you limit families to one, for some reason :( it tends to be male which leads to the problems previously mentioned in this thread.

I also don't think at this stage it needs to be enforced but we WILL come to that in our future. If we focus on education and widespread access to ALL forms of birth control we can at least prolong the inevitable.

We also need to stop putting our primary focus on money. While it is important to provide for your family you cannot plant money for food, you cannot drink money. I suppose you could make clothes or homes out of money but I'm sure there are better materials lol. When it really comes down it money will not do jack squat for our survival. I know we've all been brought up to believe the primary focus of our life should be the procurement of money but we have been bamboozled.

Jennifer - posted on 03/04/2010

Yes Amber it's true =] Everyone should think before they take the chance of possibly procreating. Accidents do happen but there's always a chance contraception will fail. How do you find being a teen mam? I got was he planned a lot even though we're married lol!

Jennifer - posted on 03/04/2010

Ooo really Meghan! I loved doing GCSE and A Level geography =] my sister is a fully qualified geography teacher =]

Alison - posted on 03/04/2010

It depnds on the individual province as to how the one child policy is enforced. There's a family from my Church who are living in a very Christian friendly part of China and the one child policy is not really enforced. Families will not recieve assistance for more than one child, but they're not usually sanctioned with fines or other punishment either.

In other areas of China there have been cases of forced abortion and sterilization as well as families having extra children removed from their custody. Anyone in their right mind would agree that such practices are a violation of basic human rights.

I think safe sex, birth control and voluntary sterilization should be promoted in poor areas of the world, but NEVER enforced. People died in shocking proverty in Britain at one time and they continued to reproduce. If similar policies had been in place back then some of us would not be here. We survived as a people, other societies also have a right to survive as a people without western based organizations attempting to control their population as if they were a pest like fox or rabbits.

Meghan - posted on 03/04/2010

Jennifer- thats wehre I got the topic from...lol...Im in a geography class this semester lol...

Amber - posted on 03/04/2010

I agree completely I am too a teen mom and I know that if we could not support our son then we would have given him up for adoption to a family that could. I know that every country has its faults, I think i am more upset with people themselves for not make a consciouse decision about sex. And that goes for everyone everywhere, if you can not feed a child then you should not have a child. (IMO)

Jennifer - posted on 03/04/2010

Yes they should think about the consequences of having lots of children and the risk of passing in AIDs but they just dont have the education in Africa to get this point across and their culture is to have lots of children as they are usually farmers and needs lots of offspring to work the farm. I don't agree with it but that's how it is.

Plenty of people do have children who have aids and it isn't passed on but modern medicine in the developed world prevents this.

I think ultimately before we criticise other countries birth rate we should take a look at our own countries. I live in the UK and it has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the UK. I'm a teen mam, 19 years old, married, have our own house and are financially able to provide for our son. Every country has it faults.

Amber - posted on 03/04/2010

I think that there should be a limit, damn near everywhere, but i think that it should be based on financial means. If you can afford to have 4 children and be able to supply there basic needs and a little extra here and there then you should be able to have them, but if you can not support a child then you should not have a child. I think it is more of a morals issue, because why would you have children that you can not support?

Jennifer Morrritt:: I think that if you are to poor to fee yourself then why would you even what to have sex and risk that chance of trying to have to feed another mouth, and not only that but if you have AIDS you shouldn't be having sex anyway because not only are you going to give it to your partner but you are going to potenially give you to your offspring. I think that it is just ignorant to believe that you can be sexually active without thinking about what it is going to do.

Jennifer - posted on 03/04/2010

But Lyndsay how do you propose the citizens of Africa stop producing children? Most are too poor to feed themselves nevermind to buy contraception!!! I disagree with the one-child-policy, I studied it in Geography and was horrified by the number of newborn girls left in the gutters to die. I wouldn't want someone to dictate how many children I have, we're lucky to live in democracys.

Geralyn - posted on 03/03/2010

Nothing is without consequences. The policy is and was, in practice, discriminatory against girls thereby causing millions of elective abortions of girls, abandonment/adoptions of girls, etc. Periodically there have been articles talking about one significant consequence. There are NOT enough women to marry millions of men. Besides the romantic thought of never finding a life partner (lol), just think of all the socio-economic consequences affecting all aspects of life. Here's one such article....



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/wo...



There are also reports of abductions of women/girls sold as sex slaves, and these reports will increase as the ratios of men to women increase.... So while there may be the "benefits" that you have identified, unfortunately there will be ramifications affecting not only this generation but generations to come....

Lyndsay - posted on 03/03/2010

I didn't read all of that (it was a big long), but I kind of skimmed through. I totally agree with China's policy, I think it was an excellent idea and I think more countries should do the same. Africa, for one. I see about 50 commercials a day asking people to donate to all the little African kids who have no families because they are all dying of AIDS. I mean, yeah, I feel sorry for them and all (sometimes I even donate money), but really I think that they should just stop producing children.

Meghan - posted on 03/03/2010

Family planning has promoted the improvement of the quality of the Chinese population in terms of education and health as well as the overall development of the people.



China's family planning has always included the two aspects of controlling the population size and improving the population quality in terms of education and health. While making efforts to control the population at an appropriate size, the Chinese government has devoted great attention to developing educational, medical and other services in order continuously to improve the quality of the population in terms of education and health. Prior to 1949, the mortality rate was as high as 20 per thousand, while by the end of the 1970s it had dropped to below 7 per thousand. From 1949 to 1990, the life expectancy rose from 35 years to 68.55 years--66.84 years for males and 70.47 years for females, making China a country where the life expectancy increased the most rapidly. Great improvements have been witnessed in the basic facilities for public health in China. Throughout the country, the average number of hospital beds for every 10,000 people increased from 13.3 in 1970 to 23.6 in 1994, and the average number of professional medical workers and technical workers in the field of medicine for every 10,000 people went up from 17.5 in 1970 to 35 in 1994. The incidence of various contagious diseases has markedly dropped. The diet of urban and rural people throughout the country has greatly improved, the per-capita daily calorie intake has reached 2,600 Kcal. and that of protein has reached 75 grams, having reached or approaching the world average levels. Health care for women and children has continuously expanded. Now, family planning as well as maternity and child care networks have been basically formed in China's urban and rural areas. The mortality rate for babies dropped from 200 per thousand prior to the founding of the People's Republic to 35 per thousand in 1990, the death rate of expectant and new mothers was 94.7 per 100,000, and the rate of planned immunity for new-born babies reached 85 percent. The major indexes of people's medical care and health have already far outstripped countries at the same level of economic development, and the gap with the developed countries is being gradually narrowed.



The Chinese government has taken education as a strategic key for the country's development, and great progress has been made in this field. China is now accomplishing the goal of nine-year compulsory education in a planned and systematic way. In 1994, the enrolment at schools, at various levels and of various kinds throughout the country, already reached 270 million, the schooling rate of school-age children reached 98.4 percent, the illiteracy rate of young and middle-aged people dropped to 7 percent, primary education was made universal in areas with 91 percent of the country's population, the major cities and some of the developed regions basically popularized junior middle school education, and infant education as well as the special education for handicapped children developed steadily. Secondary vocational and technical education developed quickly, and enrollment has reached 8.446 million, accounting for 56 percent of the total number of students at the level of senior middle school. Countrywide, over 200 million farmers have received various kinds of education in general knowledge and practical skills.