Abortion Consultations Spike in China as 'Year of Sheep' Approaches

danjoseph | December 29, 2014
DONATE
Font Size

Prospective Chinese parents are doing everything they can to ensure that their child is born before February 19th (which is the start of the Chinese New Year) and are even going as far as to consider abortion so that their child is not born in the coming “Year of the Sheep.”

According to Chinese superstition, children who are born in the the “year of the horse” which we are currently enjoying, tend to be healthy and destined for success, while those born in the year of the Sheep tend to be meek and unhappy.

As a result, China is seeing a rise of c-sections in an effort by parents to ensure that they have “horse babies” rather than “sheep babies.”  This in turn has led to an unexpected  jump in births and a shortage of birth certificates and other documents necessary for Chinese newborns to qualify for essential government services.  

China’s state media has also taken to the airwaves in order to dispel the superstitions that many in China have when it comes to the characteristics associated with  different animals in the Chinese zodiac.  

It is estimated that Chinese women have between 8 to 10 million abortions annually.  In more than half of these cases the abortion is not the first one that the woman has received.  

donate