Like Pigs in a Slaughterhouse
During Advent, Christians love to tell their children the story of Mary, great with child, arriving in Bethlehem to give birth to her Son.
It's a heartwarming image. But for many Chinese women, it's one that brings back horrible memories. Memories of their own pregnancies that ended, not in birth, but in the death of their babies through forced abortion.
A Chinese woman called Wujian-not her real name-recently testified before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission about China's brutal one-child policy. Four years ago, Wujian became pregnant with an "illegal" baby-one conceived without a birth permit.
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In an effort to protect her child, Wujian hid in a shack in a remote area. She was lonely and frightened, but took pleasure in feeling her baby begin to move inside her.
But when family planning officials learned where she was, they broke into the house and dragged Wujian into a van. She was taken to a hospital, where she found dozens of other women who had just undergone forced abortions. Some were crying, some were screaming, and one was rolling around the floor in agony. They were, Wujian said, "just like pigs in the slaughterhouse."
And then it was Wujian's turn. As the nurse prepared to inject her with oxytocin to induce birth, Wujian begged her not to do it. The nurse became angry. She told Wujian that she did these procedures every day, and that it was no big deal. "She put the needle...in my womb," Wujian says. "It was the end of the world for me."
The next evening, Wujian was taken to a room with bloody fingerprints on the wall left by other women. Since the injection had not worked, the doctors opted for a surgical procedure that is simply too gruesome for me to describe on the air.
Conscious during the procedure, Wujian decided at that point that she really wanted to die. At the end of the surgery, the nurse showed the results of the procedure, and then, her baby's remains were thrown into a trash can.
As the months went by, Wujian's emotional suffering increased. She could not forgive herself for not saving her child. Wujian was saved, however-and healed-only when she accepted Christ.
She told the Lantos Commission, "I do believe that I will meet my baby again in heaven. If God allows, I will ask forgiveness from my baby when I see [him] in heaven."
Wujian is just one of hundreds of millions of Chinese women who endure the evil of forced abortion-what Congressman Chris Smith calls "the worst violation of women's rights in human history."
The Chinese claim that they've loosened up their one-child policy. It's a lie. I hope you'll go to our website, BreakPoint.org, and we'll tell you about how you can sign a petition asking the Chinese government-no, demanding the Chinese government end this barbaric practice once and for all.
And as we prepare to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child, we should pray for women like Wujian-mothers who suffer the agony of having their precious little babies murdered-every day of the year.
