In a word: Yes. From feminist Courtney E. Martin to a reader of the ongoing population forum:
Kristi writes “So, aside from China’s widespread human rights violations and the lack of freedom of expression, just in regards to this particular policy, what are people really so against?” A one-child policy enforced from on high is not only “an infringement on human rights,” as Aditi Raychoudhury rightly put it, but a slippery slope. You start telling people how many children they can have, and you don’t have to cover much ideological, not to mention legislative or judicial ground, before you’re telling them how or when to have that one child. Plus, children don’t, despite the lingering stork theories, manifest immaculately. They come from women’s bodies, and women deserve ultimate control over those bodies. Controlling reproduction becomes controlling women’s bodies becomes a total compromise of the reproductive justice that feminists have been fighting so long to achieve (unfinished business, to be sure). Plus, Kristi, do you really believe that femicide and the other not-so-small side effects of policies like these wouldn’t happen outside of China? According to April 2009 findings, there is now a gap of 32 million more males than females under the age of 20 in China. Not. Okay.
Why do you think population is such a radioactive topic? Mix it up with Courtney and the rest of us today and Friday at the MoJo Population Forum, here.
