Chinese Woman Falls to Her Death Fleeing Forced Abortion of Twins

By Hilary White HONG KONG, July 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com)

The Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy reported this weekend that a woman pregnant with twins has fallen to her death while fleeing a forced abortion in a hospital in Himei. Li Shimei, who was seven months pregnant, was seized at her home and taken to the hospital in the eastern city of Hefei because she already had one child when she became pregnant. Shimei fell from the Shuguang Hospital’s second floor while trying to leave because she thought the procedure was too dangerous, the Information Centre said. The Information Centre provides information about human rights abuses in mainland China for news outlets around the world. While forced or coerced abortion is officially outlawed, human rights groups outside China and some human rights activists within the communist country have said that with quotas laid on local officials, women and families are commonly intimidated or outright forced to abort. China’s One Child policy has come under fire even from the abortion-friendly United Nations human rights inspectors. Demographers believe that China has one of the highest rates of abortion in the world. In 2001, a single region, Guangdong (formerly known as Canton) was ordered by ‘family planning’ officials to carry out a quota of at least 20,000 abortions and sterilizations. In 2005, despite “reforms” claimed by the Chinese government, Amnesty International reported that forced abortion continued to be common.