Abortion in China

China: Retreat on Criminalizing Gender Abortions
The National People's Congress, China's Parliament, has scrapped a proposal that would criminalize abortions based on the sex of the fetus, the state media reported, despite a growing population imbalance between males and females. Newspapers said lawmakers were divided over criminalizing sex-selective abortions. The original amendment called for fines and prison terms of up to three years for aborting a fetus because of the sex for nonmedical reasons, the reports said. A three-decade-old policy limiting most couples to one child has made abortion a widely used method for controlling family size. As a result, and because of cultural preferences for sons, China faces a growing population imbalance, with many more boys than girls. The New China News Agency said there were now 119 boys born for every 100 girls, a larger gap than the government's previously published figure of 117 boys per 100 girls. Globally, the average ratio is about 105 boys to 100 girls.