A picture of a foetus whose mother Feng Jiamei was forced to have an abortion has shocked China web users.
Feng Jiamei, from Shaanxi province, was made to undergo the procedure in the seventh month of pregnancy, local officials said after investigating.
Feng Jiamei was forced into the abortion as she could not pay the fine for having a second child, US-based activists said.
Rights groups say China’s one-child policy has meant women being coerced into abortions, which Beijing denies.
“Feng Jianmei’s story demonstrates how the One-Child Policy continues to sanction violence against women every day,” said Chai Ling of the US-based activist group All Girls Allowed.
The group says it spoke to Feng Jiamei and her husband Deng Jiyuan after the incident.
Deng Jiyuan said his wife had been forcibly taken to hospital and restrained before the procedure.
Such allegations are nothing new in China, but what has made this one different is a widely circulated photo of the woman lying next to the baby’s corpse.
Media reports from China says Feng Jiamei has been traumatized by what has happened.
Unnamed local officials in Zhenping county – where the incident took place – denied forcing Feng Jiamei to have the abortion, local media reports say.
But a preliminary investigation by the Shaanxi Provincial Population and Family Planning Commission confirmed the forced abortion had taken place.
Without naming Feng Jiamei, it said in a statement that the woman had been seven months pregnant.
“Such practice has seriously violated the relevant policies set by national and provincial family planning commissions, which harmed the image of our family planning work, and caused extremely poor effects in society,” said the statement.
“Based on the findings, we have requested the local government to punish the relevant officers according to law,” it said.
Internet users expressed outrage.
“This is what they say the Japanese devils and Nazis did. But it’s happening in reality and it is by no means the only case… They [the officials] should be executed,” one reader on news website netease.com said, according to the AFP news agency.
Activist Chen Guangcheng, who was put under virtual house arrest for campaigning against forced abortions, fled China to the US last month.
This is disgusting. My son was born at 30 weeks. He is alive and healthy. How can anyone condone this vile and barbaric abortion in such a late a stage of pregnancy.
I am extremely disgusted. It’s not even human, what these people have done to Feng Jiamei and her child. I didn’t even think there was such thing as a forced abortion. I was born after spending only eight months inside my mother…that child could have been born the same time…s/he may have even been born a week later if not for the abortion. A day later, even! God sent that child to Earth for a reason, and I don’t think it was his intention for the child to be MURDERED!
I wish the officials could be executed. To even think up something so horrible…those BEASTS are not human.
if u cant afford a kid and u dont want to make a murder, then just use a freakin condom or other contraceptive methods.
the laws are correct. if we cannot control this phenomenon, we will end up 20 billions and kill each other for food. china does it for the world and not for themselves.
stop being ignorant, ppl. its not the authorities’ fault, but hers