My mom has shared stories about what they had to do in
order to keep us safe from the government. When she became pregnant
with each of the youngest three girls, she would have to go into hiding
for months.
[Bound4Life.com]
Only weeks ago, the Chinese Communist Party announced that China will
change its long-standing one-child policy to a two-child policy. (Photo for illustration only: Beryl Chan/Flickr)
While
this is welcome news, the nation's violent, coercive family planning
regime will only be altered moderately by this change. Even ending the
policy entirely cannot bring back lives already lost.
For almost four decades, the oppressive
regime has strictly implemented forced sterilization and forced
abortions on millions of women who were caught having more than one
child.
China's official health ministry estimates that over 330 million children
have been aborted since the policy was instituted in 1980. Often, women
found pregnant with more than one child are dragged out of their homes,
beaten and forced to undergo abortion by the government's family
planning enforcement.
This news is personal to me. I come from a
Chinese family of five girls and one boy. All the girls were born in
communist China; the youngest three, including myself, were born
illegally after the one-child policy went into effect.
Because Chinese culture values sons over
daughters, a disproportionate number of girls have been aborted as a
result. So much so that it has created a major 'Missing Women' problem—not just in China, but throughout Asia.
Like most Chinese families, of course, my
parents wanted a son. Yet they kept on having daughters: five of them.
Despite what the government and society were preaching, my parents and
extended family had very strong family values, loved children and didn't
want to abort any of us.
My
mom has shared stories about what they had to do in order to keep us
safe from the government. When she became pregnant with each of the
youngest three girls, she would have to go into hiding for months. (Photo: Lisa's parents with their five daughters in China/Courtesy of Lisa Smiley)
When she became pregnant with me, my parents
already had three girls. My older sister, Julie, was just a toddler; my
mom had to leave her with a relative and keep my two oldest sisters at
home, while she ran to the city by herself to stay with another
relative. Government officials would come looking for women like her who
violated the law.
When her due date approached, she traveled
to another city to give birth to me away from home. She was extremely
scared and stressed that she would be caught, but luckily it didn't
happen.
There were certain times in the year when
government officials were especially strict on families who broke the
law. During those times, my two older sisters were left at home in the
care of my aunts and uncles, while my parents would have to take the
younger daughters to another part of the province and stay with my
grandparents.
We were never allowed to all be at home when
the officials came looking for us. The whole village was very hush
hush; daring families like ours who had more than one or two children
ran off with their babies for fear of what the government would do to
us.
My oldest sister, who was attending
elementary school, remembers this time. Government workers would come up
to her and ask where her parents were. She would answer that she didn't
know. My parents never told her much of what was going on, so she
didn't have any secrets to share.
She also remembers how other kids and
families would look down upon us and talk behind our backs about our
large family of girls. We were not just illegal; we were also socially
unaccepted. She heard people condemning our family, saying, What bad
luck to have so many girls! That family will surely have no future.
But despite the odds against us, my mom says
we were fortunate for so many reasons; she never wanted us to forget
that. For one, we lived in the countryside rather than the city where
laws were imposed much more strictly.
As poor farmers who grew their own food, my
parents didn't have to rely on the government for their livelihood. Yet
they did make just enough to pay a small sum to a few government
workers, who treated our family kindly and didn't report us to the
higher officials.
However, looking towards the future, my
parents knew their children's prospects looked quite grim. Fortunately,
because much of our extended family had moved overseas, we were also
able to leave the country when I was four years old—first to New
Zealand, then later to America.
If we had stayed in China, I don't know what
would have happened to us. Many illegally born children are denied
legitimacy in the greater society and are forced to live as "ghost children."
We are fortunate in America today that no
mother has to break the law to choose life. But I grieve for the country
of China, my motherland. Over 300 million lives lost, each with a
personal story of tragedy... and to think my sisters and I could have
been counted among that statistic.
I am so indebted to my parents. What they had to go through to choose life for me and my four sisters is incredible.
Today, they are reaping the rewards of their
courageous actions. Near retirement, my parents plan to visit each of
their children: to stay with those of us in Texas for a few months, then
hop over to California to visit my sister and her family.
They talk about this with such delight. They
cannot wait to see their grandchildren and cook for us truly authentic
Chinese food while they are here—as every Chinese parent loves to do.
I
can only imagine what they would be thinking if they had aborted me or
any of my sisters. Their thoughts and dreams would be completely
different: mourning for lost children, hopes and dreams that could have
been, as is the case in millions of homes in China. (Photo: Lisa, at right, pictured with two of her siblings Courtesy of Lisa Smiley)
It brings to mind a photograph that went viral—of
a mother after she was beaten, with her seven-month aborted baby lying
next to her. It is a painful sight to behold, illustrating the major
violations against human rights that the Chinese government has
committed under this cruel policy... and likely will continue to commit.
Children are a blessing and every life has
value. I am so fortunate that my parents believed this to be true. If
they had believed differently, following society's views on girls and
obeying unjust laws, my sisters and I would not be alive today.
Lisa Smiley is a mother of three
precious children, and one on the way. She earned a bachelor's degree in
philosophy from the University of California-Irvine. Lisa blogs at
LisaSmiley.com as well as for Bound4LIFE International, a grassroots
movement to pray for the ending of abortion and believe for revival
worldwide. Together with her husband James, they raise their family in
the Dallas area.
Reprinted with permission from Bound4LIFE.
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