The Regulatory Model of Abortion in China through a Feminist Lens

Abstract

A medical, surgical termination of pregnancy is the only means of avoiding an unplanned and unwanted birth when contraception fails. Access to safe and affordable abortion is therefore essential to satisfy women’s rights to health and the exercise of control over life choices. Restrictive law is usually considered as the main cause of abortions performed in illegal and unhygienic clinics, which could be healthor life-threatening. Thus, many feminists argue that women’s reproductive health and rights would be promoted by establishing a less restrictive regulatory model of abortion. By examining the Chinese abortion law, this paper aims to analyze whether it is liberal and if so, how it satisfies women’s rights to health and reproductive self-determination. While the law looks unrestrictive, in reality it fails to serve this purpose and instead facilitates the state’s manipulation of female fertility. Since the regulation of abortion in China is significantly determined by the state’s policy-making in relation to population, an in-depth analysis of the connection between regulation and policy is given to indicate how the state imposes the burden of achieving its population goals on women. In addition, to further scrutinize how women’s rights to health and reproductive decision-making are violated by the implementation of abortion law in practice, this paper offers a discussion on the Chinese-style practice of family planning. Finally, feasible proposals are made for reformulating the Chinese regulatory model, so it can protect women’s health and reproductive rights from the state’s coercive involvement and can promote women’s access to adequate medical and state support. By providing a normative analysis of the Chinese abortion law, this paper also suggests that a woman-friendly law ought to move beyond a liberal form and to be brought into line with the principle of respect for women’s rights to health and to reproductive decision-making.