As China Limits Vasectomies, Many Ask What’s Next
Large public hospitals in China’s biggest cities have stopped offering the procedure, or are restricting it to married men with children, according to a recent report in the Washington Post.
For now, it’s little more than an inconvenience; the procedure is still available in many areas, and outright restrictions on reproductive freedom aren’t likely any time soon. But it’s slowly dawning on young Chinese that the government sees its version of family planning as a solution to a declining population — and that they can no longer take for granted their right to not procreate.
Fourteen years later, Mao’s government set a target of reducing the annual rate of population growth from 2.5% to 1% in cities, and to 1.5% in rural areas. By the end of the decade, it lowered those targets to 0.6% in the cities and 1% in the country. The One Child Policy, starting in 1979, was intended to ensure that population growth didn’t outpace all-important economic growth. Implementing the policy was generally left to local governments, which often used threats and coercion — including forced sterilizations and abortions — to meet their targets.
For years, China’s top leaders have called for boosting fertility without specifying how. In the absence of direction, individuals have improvised. “The fundamental policy is that China needs more childbirths,” a hospital administrator who’s chosen to limit vasectomies told the Washington Post. The outcome, in his case, is less access to a form of family planning that Chinese couples long took for granted. In a country where “family planning” is synonymous with population control, that’s a bleak hint of the future.
As China Limits Vasectomies, Many Ask What’s Next - Bloomberghttps://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-12-16/as-china-limits-vasectomies-many-ask-what-s-nextTLDR: Čína nenápadně začíná omezovat vasektomie, aby se rodilo víc dětí a nabije si na tom držku, protože lidi přejdou na jinou antikoncepci, akorát to bude míň pohodlné