Expanding eugenics or improving health care in China: commentary on the Provisions of the Standing Committee of the Gansu People's Congress concerning the prohibition of reproduction by intellectually impaired persons.

Abstract

From the earliest marriage regulations in the Chinese Soviets, there has been an official assumption that China should be populated by its fittest stock. Various measures have appeared over the years in pursuit of this aim, the most recent of which, a national law restricting reproduction,' has attracted considerable controversy as a result of its eugenic intent. In this nationalistic aim, however, China does not stand alone as similar eugenic positions have been held not only in Nazi Germany but also in the United States of America, the United Kingdom and other jurisdictions generally considered to be 'enlightened'. In China the eugenic thread can be traced back at the national level, through the Marriage Law and its various regulations, but it is also manifest at the more localized provincial level. One recent recondite example is the 'Provisions of the Standing Committee of the Gansu People's Congress concerning the Prohibition of Reproduction by Intellectually Impaired Persons' (translated and annexed to this commentary) with the expressed objectives to 'improve the quality of the population' and 'reduce the burden on the society and on the families of intellectually impaired persons.' As such, the provisions in themselves could attract the label 'eugenic' but this appellation becomes more forceful in the context of broader national concerns, such as those about population growth which have spawned, since the early 1970s, programmes of sterilization and abortion throughout China aimed at containing the quantity, whilst perfecting the quality of the Chinese population. International involvement with population control has not