Birth Rate low: China launches intervening campaign’ against abortion

A state-backed family planning agency announced this week that they would launch a ‘special campaign’ aimed at ‘intervening’ in abortions after China’s birth rate hit a record low last year. China Family Planning Association’s work plan for 2022 states that it will actively ‘intervene’ in abortions for unmarried people this year.

The plan has been described as a way to improve and promote reproductive health. According to the association, the campaign will include pilot projects to ‘promote positivity’ around marriage and childbirth. Other goals include advocating for marriages in villages and ‘grassroots outreach’ to guide the masses in their family planning.

As China’s birth rate reaches a record low, the government is launching a campaign to reduce abortions. According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, China’s birth rate dropped for the fifth consecutive year in 2021, which could soon lead to a shrinking population.

Earlier this year, the Chinese government announced a significant policy shift to combat its dwindling birth rate, changing its two-child policy to allow couples to have up to three children. There is uncertainty, however, as to whether this policy shift can bring about a decrease in China’s declining birth rate. Chinese youth, for example, are resisting the idea of starting families, citing the high costs of bearing and raising children, as well as their fast-paced ‘9-9-6’ lifestyle as reasons not to start families.

In China, abortion is legal, and the government has made no official moves to restrict abortions. However, the state council issued guidelines on abortion in September last year, stating that to ‘improve women’s reproductive rights’, abortions for non-medical reasons should be reduced, including the requirement that women present medical reasons for having the procedure.

China’s Population and Development Research Center, a department of the country’s national health commission, reported that nine million abortions were performed each year from 2005 to 2017. According to the report, the actual number of abortions might be closer to 13 million a year if one includes four million procedures performed in private clinics and hospitals.