"In South Dakota the state legislature voted to outlaw all abortions
except to save the life of the mother. The legislation, which did not
even include the usual exception for rape or incest, was clearly
intended as a frontal assault on the high court's 1973 decision,
Roe v. Wade, guaranteeing a woman's right to an abortion."
Growing up with the Chinese mentality, this stance against abortion is foreign to me.
The Chinese philosophy is pragmatic. In a country that enforces population control, abortion is a way of life. My mother had two abortions in between giving birth to me and my younger brother. The only regret I ever heard her express was, "做完第二个人流后，我屁股就大了。" which means "After the second abortion, my ass got a lot bigger." Other than the weight gain, she had no complaints.
My mother told me a story of her coworker in Beijing who got pregnant for a second time. This coworker wanted to keep the child, so she hid her pregnancy until the seventh month. Then the officials found out and forced her to go to the hospital for an abortion.
"She protested that it was too late in the pregnancy for an abortion," my mother described, "but they forced her into it. They took the fetus out, and she heard it let out a cry. Then the doctor took it away and killed it in a pan."
That's probably the kind of story that made South Dakota pass their law.
The American fixation, nay obsession, with the unborn child and how it differs from the neglect of the child once it is born will never cease to shock me. You have people like our good mate, Dick Cheney, who, on one hand, thinks that abortion ought to be banned outright, but has no reservations about sending people to war on false pretenses. As for the other person's comment, there's a reason people aren't living in South Dakota -- we don't need a government whose thought and heads are forever bound to the 16th century.
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