Chinese social media was flooded with comments from women fed up with what they see as government efforts to control their bodies, describing the apparent U-turn on abortion as a desperate attempt to boost the country's dwindling birth rates.
Has the female body become a tool?
"The female body has become a tool," said one top comment on Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform. "When (the state) wants you to bear a child, you must do it at all cost. When (the state) doesn't want it, you're not allowed to give birth even at the risk of death."
The abortion policy was included in an expansive government blueprint to further women's rights over the next decade, covering areas ranging from education to employment, which state-run media boasted would improve gender equality "to a higher level in the new era."
The measure on abortion was part of a larger section about reproductive health that included provisions such as increasing health education and access to contraception. Beyond that brief sentence, however, no other details -- such as how the abortion restriction would be implemented or what criteria women would need to meet -- were provided.
"This, of course, is not a red alert nationwide ban on abortion, which would create an enormous uproar," she said. "But, in fact, it's more obvious than I had anticipated because it's coming in the form of this document issued by the State Council, a nationwide policy document."
Despite its brevity, the line is "a statement of central government policy, and it sends a signal to all of those local level (Communist Party) cadres that this is a priority of the central government," she added.
Abortion has been widely practiced in China for decades. Under the one-child policy, introduced in 1979, millions of women a year were forced to terminate "illegal" pregnancies.
Selective abortion
The traditional preference for sons also led to a rise in sex-selective abortions, with families often choosing to abort girls. This has contributed to a significantly skewed gender ratio, with the 2021 census revealing there were almost 35 million more men than women in the country of 1.4 billion.
But over the past decade, China changed tack completely as it began to reckon with the consequences of its one-child policy -- a rapidly aging population and shrinking workforce that threatened the country's economic growth.
To raise its plummeting fertility rate, China enacted the two-child policy in 2016, then the three-child policy in August this year. The government has also launched an aggressive propaganda campaign urging women to have more children, with some local authorities even offering financial incentives for families.
So far, their efforts have been met with a lukewarm response at best. Many women, who now enjoy greater educational and career opportunities than in the past, are reluctant to expand their families -- especially with other obstacles like a high cost of living and entrenched gender norms that relegate childcare to mothers.
Increasing abortion despite policy moderation
Abortions have also remained high, even after the one-child policy was relaxed and the government criminalized sex-selective terminations. An average of 9.7 million terminations were performed per year between 2014 and 2018, according to Reuters, citing data from China's National Health Commission.
In response, authorities have increasingly voiced concern over abortions, with state media warning they were "very harmful" and could cause "serious psychological disorders" in unmarried women. In 2018, Jiangxi province banned abortions for non-medical reasons after the 14th week, joining several other provinces with similar rules in place.
"The entire history of population planning in China ... has been incredibly abusive and coercive," said Hong Fincher. "So I think there is a lot of reason to be very concerned about this complete 180-degree turn in emphasis coming from the central government, saying that now, China needs to reduce the number of non-medical abortions."
Some experts, however, caution it's too soon to say what the impact will be -- especially since it's not the first time the government has signaled such intentions. The last 10-year plan for women's development, published in 2011, also aimed to "reduce the rate of abortion" and of unwanted pregnancy in general by improving sexual education and access to contraception.
Besides, several other countries also restrict terminations of pregnancies beyond 14 weeks for health and safety concerns. The reason the policy is prompting debate now is "because the attention and focus on the issue have changed, where people are concerned about limits on their rights to control their bodies," she said.
Communist party rhetoric
"There's this rhetoric that the Communist Party was founded on the basis of gender equality ... it's literally enshrined in the Constitution," said Hong Fincher.
"But the fact is, just looking at the evidence of quite a few years already ... the government's movement has been in opposition to furthering women's rights, in opposition to gender equality. I think that the direction is clear now."...
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