else I would not be able to accomplish my target,” said Huang. “I can’t possibly guarantee they won’t have another baby with just a promise.”
China in particular favored sterilization because it was a virtually foolproof way of lowering fertility.Nonpermanent barrier methods like condoms, the Pill, and IUDs, which gave individuals more choice and control, were not so trustworthy, even though the IUD used—a stainless steel ring with no string—was specially modified so women could not remove it themselves.In one year alone, 1983, China sterilized over 20 million people, more than the combined population of the three largest US cities, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
Nowadays, sterilizations are no longer mandatory in Huangjiapu. Such methods are unnecessary, for the little village’s population has fallen from its peak in 1983, when there were almost six hundred inhabitants. In 2008, Huangjiapu’s elementary school was forced to merge with another because there were just seven students, down from fifty in the 1980s. Some of this is due to migration of workers to cities, but most of it is due to dwindling family size, said Huang.
Throughout my interviews with Yicheng’s family-planning officials, many said they consoled themselves with the thought that they were doing their duty and carrying out an important national directive. Some of this, I felt, was lip service, justification for doing what had to be the most unpopular job in China. There appeared to be few true believers. I felt this strongly talking to Che Yuelian, the local village medic and family-planning officer in Xiheshui, another small village in Yicheng.
Che, whose Chinese name means “Moon Lotus,” had been in family-planning work since the 1970s. In those early days, her job consisted of teaching birth control techniques and encouraging people to have smaller families. Many families took exception to a pert twenty-three-year-old giving them advice on sterilization and abortion. “They said, ‘We’ll be grateful to have you help deliver babies,but it is unacceptable for a young woman like you to tell people not to have babies. Mind your own business,’” she said.
Now in her late sixties, Moon Lotus continues to work in the village clinic, a small courtyard building with maize spread out on the rafters to dry. After administering an intravenous drip to an elderly patient, Moon Lotus, a rotund, deeply tanned woman with piercing eyes, settled down to a cigarette. It was the first of many during a difficult conversation. She was evasive and made it clear she didn’t enjoy my questions.
Like Huang, she constantly referred to her task as one of “persuasion.” I asked her if she ever persuaded any women with late-term pregnancies to abort. Moon Lotus first replied by saying this was illegal. Later, she said no, she hadn’t. Then she recalled persuading a woman six months along to have an abortion. “She didn’t even know she was six months pregnant, but I could tell just by looking,” she said triumphantly.
Her first successful case of persuasion was a twenty-seven-year-old mother of two daughters. The woman wanted the operation but feared her in-laws’ disapproval. Moon Lotus secretly escorted her to the operation and gave her a ride back on her bicycle. For her pains, she was verbally abused by the woman’s relatives. “Her mother-in-law cursed me, ‘It’s your own business that your family does not have a son. But I want a grandson to pass down our family name.’” Even Moon Lotus’s parents yelled at her. “But I said, although this job is troublesome, somebody’s got to do it. At that time, people held the old concept of preferring boys to girls and said nobody is going to bury you if you don’t have a son.”
Even family ties gave way to family-planning imperatives. Moon Lotus’s nephew’s wife became pregnant at twenty-two, two years before the permitted age for a first pregnancy. Get an abortion, said Moon
China in particular favored sterilization because it was a virtually foolproof way of lowering fertility.Nonpermanent barrier methods like condoms, the Pill, and IUDs, which gave individuals more choice and control, were not so trustworthy, even though the IUD used—a stainless steel ring with no string—was specially modified so women could not remove it themselves.In one year alone, 1983, China sterilized over 20 million people, more than the combined population of the three largest US cities, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
Nowadays, sterilizations are no longer mandatory in Huangjiapu. Such methods are unnecessary, for the little village’s population has fallen from its peak in 1983, when there were almost six hundred inhabitants. In 2008, Huangjiapu’s elementary school was forced to merge with another because there were just seven students, down from fifty in the 1980s. Some of this is due to migration of workers to cities, but most of it is due to dwindling family size, said Huang.
Throughout my interviews with Yicheng’s family-planning officials, many said they consoled themselves with the thought that they were doing their duty and carrying out an important national directive. Some of this, I felt, was lip service, justification for doing what had to be the most unpopular job in China. There appeared to be few true believers. I felt this strongly talking to Che Yuelian, the local village medic and family-planning officer in Xiheshui, another small village in Yicheng.
Che, whose Chinese name means “Moon Lotus,” had been in family-planning work since the 1970s. In those early days, her job consisted of teaching birth control techniques and encouraging people to have smaller families. Many families took exception to a pert twenty-three-year-old giving them advice on sterilization and abortion. “They said, ‘We’ll be grateful to have you help deliver babies,but it is unacceptable for a young woman like you to tell people not to have babies. Mind your own business,’” she said.
Now in her late sixties, Moon Lotus continues to work in the village clinic, a small courtyard building with maize spread out on the rafters to dry. After administering an intravenous drip to an elderly patient, Moon Lotus, a rotund, deeply tanned woman with piercing eyes, settled down to a cigarette. It was the first of many during a difficult conversation. She was evasive and made it clear she didn’t enjoy my questions.
Like Huang, she constantly referred to her task as one of “persuasion.” I asked her if she ever persuaded any women with late-term pregnancies to abort. Moon Lotus first replied by saying this was illegal. Later, she said no, she hadn’t. Then she recalled persuading a woman six months along to have an abortion. “She didn’t even know she was six months pregnant, but I could tell just by looking,” she said triumphantly.
Her first successful case of persuasion was a twenty-seven-year-old mother of two daughters. The woman wanted the operation but feared her in-laws’ disapproval. Moon Lotus secretly escorted her to the operation and gave her a ride back on her bicycle. For her pains, she was verbally abused by the woman’s relatives. “Her mother-in-law cursed me, ‘It’s your own business that your family does not have a son. But I want a grandson to pass down our family name.’” Even Moon Lotus’s parents yelled at her. “But I said, although this job is troublesome, somebody’s got to do it. At that time, people held the old concept of preferring boys to girls and said nobody is going to bury you if you don’t have a son.”
Even family ties gave way to family-planning imperatives. Moon Lotus’s nephew’s wife became pregnant at twenty-two, two years before the permitted age for a first pregnancy. Get an abortion, said Moon
Similar Books
