The Chinese government says it is aiming to crack down on instances of sex-selective abortion for non-medical purposes, in order to protect the nation's female citizens.
A plan, called the Outline for the Development of Chinese Children was released on Monday and details that more will be done to eradicate discrimination against girls and promote gender equality.
Under the report, plans to prohibit ultrasonic techniques for non-medical purposes will be put into effect and the Chinese one child policy will amended, allowing more than one child to be born to a family in special circumstances.
The one child policy was established in the 1970's in order to control a rapidly growing Chinese population. This resulted in heavy discrimination and violence against girls and women. Because Chinese culture prizes male children as the continuum of family bloodlines, a custom of killing baby girls through either infanticide or abortion became increasingly common.
The development of ultrasounds, that allow the sex of an unborn child to be determined have promoted instances of sex-selective abortion, where a fetus is aborted if it happens to be female.
This has caused a wide gap in the gender ratio of Chinese people. The current statistic is 119 males to every 100 females.
Christian Wire has stated its skepticism at this new declaration of protecting Chinese girls and women. According to the news source, the male to female ratio was 117 to 110 in 2004, when the idea of regulating sex-selective abortion was first proposed.
Under the one child policy, it is common for women to be physically forced to abort female children that they want, even in the final months of pregnancy. Some commentators are highly doubtful that the change will ever come to fruition.
Nevertheless, some areas in China are already doing what they can to help reform the family planning policy. Local government in Guangdong province, a high populated area of China, has proposed to allow two children to be born to families where at least one parent is an only child.
