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Comment by kbenson | Hacker News Reader

So, is the problem that they are forcing abortions, or that they have a social policy about childbearing?

If it's about the abortions, apparently there's two types of action taken[1]. If it's in an urban area, they apparently either charge a fee or don't assign a household register to the child (not sure what that means), but if it's rural they do apparently force abortions. If you're okay with the social policy, it seems like there are solutions that don't require forced abortions (such as implanted birth control). Whether that aspect is still ethically worse than the U.S. or not probably depends on your view on reproductive rights.

1: https://www.quora.com/What-happens-when-a-family-disobeys-th...

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> If it's in an urban area, they apparently either charge a fee or don't assign a household register to the child (not sure what that means)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system

Ah, thanks. I actually wasn't aware mobility was restricted like that. It's a little mind-boggling that China inadvertently emulated the national immigration problems of other countries with internal immigration[1], but at least it appears they are trying to fix it[2].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system#Effect_on_rural_w...

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_in_China#Hukou_refor...

Why would you think that any particularly intrusive forced medical practive is ethical? Is such a policy really all that much more acceptable than mandating abortions?

While I do not think it is more ethical I could imagine arguments from someone in such a society.

One possible argument might be that the social cost of that unborn child is so high that is it is morally reprehensible to have conceived it in the first place, and that such an action is a horrible crime.

Plenty of places suspend human right to imprison or even execute people who have committed crimes. It could be seen that such an action isn't even isn't even punitive, just corrective. Some might feel that the government simply removes the child before it is born, and then is lenient because the mother is not imprisoned for her indiscretion against society.

Other possible arguments could stem from the long term environmental harm that the child will have on the environment. If someone places higher value on nature than on human life this argument naturally follows.

That all depends on your view of individual rights vs the what's best for society. We make decisions all the time on things that restrict individual freedom because it's best for society overall. Which of these you think is okay and which you don't generally come down to where you draw the line. Here's a short list of things that in the U.S. we have dictated that everyone needs to deal with, except for specific exceptional circumstances ("exceptional" being somewhat relative depending on the item).

- Paying taxes

- Child schooling

- Vaccination

- Health care

A population growth policy that targets birth is not so entirely different from those, as fundamentally different as it may feel, depending on your background. Giving people the option of either birth control or an abortion if they get pregnant would be one way to handle that. Have a fundamental disagreement with abortion? Use birth control. Have a problem with birth control too? Take it up with the state, just like in those items above.

I'm not advocating for this, I'm just pointing out it's not fundamentally different than other things we already do.

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