China Adoption for Real-Life Saints?

Kevin Roeten

You didn’t think real-life saints existed. When you’ve seen an actual, sure-as-life saint, you know. It turns out that many who actually adopt ‘wayside’ children may be just that. This, despite cultural differences, the ‘UNFPA’, language barriers, red tape, the National Organization for Women(NOW), politics, foreign country policies, money—and yes, Satan, himself—all conspire to make the adoption process almost impossible.

Being the most populous nation on earth, one would think adoption options for China would be the greatest. But China has a national policy regulating the number of children a woman may have. A crucial element has been that of “official permission to be pregnant”. “Unauthorized’ or ‘unapproved’ pregnancy would be the most accurate translation.

One incentive used is the ‘one child certificate’ which is a contract between a couple and the government. If the contract is not complied with, fines have been reported to be 10-20%, exceeding, or 2.5x the village’s per capita income(SM Rigdom/ Abortion Law and Practices in China). In China, different provinces have different rules. The most common rule in rural areas is ‘two children if the first is a girl’.

Abortions increased rapidly after China’s 1979 population ‘policy’. Some reports suggested that women were forced to have an abortion if an ‘illegal’ pregnancy occurred. Sterilization became common as well. Along with that came an unnatural sex ratio(high male/low female) at birth. This has been the result of sex-selective abortions, and hiding and/or not reporting baby girls(Z.C. Wu/ British Medical Journal). Nonetheless, it’s obvious from children’s visas issued to these countries of origin(in 2005) that adoptions from China were still the most plentiful: 1) China(7906), 2)Russia(4639), 3)Guatemala(3783), 4)S.Korea(1630), 5)Ukraine(821), and 6)Kazakhstan(755)[Children’s Hope International].


But future ‘adopters’ may have to worry about other items if adopting from China. The Daily Telegraph reports that human beings being aborted in the ‘PRC’ are used for “human consumption”. The Eastern Express(Hong Kong) reports asking a female doctor for an aborted fetus. She came back with a pint-sized glass bottle stuffed with thumb-sized fetuses. The doctor is quoted as saying, “There are ten fetuses here, all aborted this morning. You can have them. Normally, we doctors take them home to eat—all free.” Zou Qin, a doctor that works at Luo Hu Clinic in Shenzhen, claims to have consumed at least 100 herself over the past 6 months. Another female doctor from Sin Hua Clinic(same town), said fetuses are “even better than placentea”. The consumption of placentae is common in China, and some consider it a delicacy.

Needless to say, the dominant media culture in North America has chosen to ignore this outrage. And why has congress recently appropriated >$60 million for the United Nations population fund? One of these recipients is China. Its ‘family plan’ is a one-child policy that coerces women to abort pregnancies not state ‘approved’. How do pro-choice advocates justify supporting a forced abortion policy?

Last year, witnesses from China told the US committee on Human Rights about the brutal and coerced abortions in China, and about how many pregnant women fled into hiding. Gao Xiaoduan, former family planning officer with the Chinese government, told how a nine-month pregnant woman was forced to undergo abortion surgery, because she did not have a birth-allowed certificate. News stories of one-child atrocities abound. Recently, the Telegraph reported that Huaiji county was targeted for more than 20,000 abortions and sterilizations, forcing abortions on those with ‘unofficial’ pregnancies.

The Chinese birth control policy has already claimed between 5-10 million victims—in each of the last 35 years. This program has written history as one of the greatest abuses of human rights in the 20th century. This list includes:

Greatest Genocides of the 20TH Century(Washington Times; 5/9/99)

o Turkey’s Slaughter of Armenians 0.5-1.0 million
o Hitler’s Holocaust 6 million
o Pol Pot’s Killing Fields 1-2 million
o Stalin Extermination of Jews 10 million
o Mao’s Great Leap Forward 10-20 million
o China’s One-Child Policy 5-10 million


Those figures don’t include the totals for America(1973-2006), of at least 44 million admitted abortions, and for China(1970-2006), >250,000 abortions. It’s no wonder that the UNFPA, Zero Population Growth, Planned Parenthood, and NOW view the Catholic Church as “the evil empire”.

Considering that prospective adoptive parents going to China must consider fees in excess of $20,000(not including INS application fee, local home certification and authentication from Chinese Embassy), it’s unknown to many what drives them to adopt. Maybe some of those feel that bodies(with souls) that are eaten deserve better. If you’re thinking of sainthood, [childrenshopeint.org] or Christian World Adoption[cwa.org] may help.

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As a Chemical Engineer, I love politics, and am an orthodox Catholic. I am a "Guest Columnist"('Asheville Citizen-Times'), a regular columnist(North Carolina Conservative), and a contributor to the book "Americans on Politics, Policy, and Pop Culture". Politics are usually covered with a skew from a Catholic perspective.

roetenks@charter.net