Forced Abortion in China

The outrage over Feng Jianmei’s forced abortion in China has been intense and widespread. The government’s efforts to dictate the reproductive choices of its citizens through cruel and inhuman treatment are a gross violation of fundamental human rights.

Tragically, around the world governments still deprive women, particularly poor and marginalized women, of control over their reproductive capacity. Romany women in Slovakia are forcibly sterilized for racist reasons. State hospitals in Chile have routinely sterilized H.I.V.-positive women without their consent. The appalling list goes on, and the human toll is incalculable.

Every woman must be guaranteed the right to dignity and dominion over her own reproductive life. Any government that fails to do so is guilty of human rights abuses, for which it must be held to account.

(2012-07-05/nytimes)