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China to criminalize sex-detection of foetus
for abortion
China plans to outlaw the selective abortion of female foetuses
to correct an imbalance in the ratio of boys to girls that has grown
since the country’s one-child policy was introduced more than
20 years ago, according to a report from the official Xinhua News
Agency.
The sex ratio at birth is highly skewed, with data showing that
in China 119 boys are born for every 100 girls. The population of
the Chinese mainland was projected to have reached 1.3 billion on
6 January, according to the National Statistics Bureau; thus, the
imbalance is huge, with the shortage of women in the population
estimated to be in the tens of millions.
China has set the goal of reversing the imbalance by 2010. Mr. Zhang
Weiqing, Minister in charge of the National Population and Family
Planning Commission, stated: “As a new measure, the Commission
will start drafting revisions to the Criminal Law in order to effectively
ban foetus gender detection and selective abortion for other than
legitimate medical purposes”.
Although China already bans sex-selective abortion, some technologies
have made it relatively easy to determine the sex of a foetus prior
to birth, thus increasing the likelihood that girls could be aborted.
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