A storm of international protest is building over a Chinese ruling that a Muslim Uighur woman who is six months pregnant must have an abortion or lose her home. Chinese authorities have ordered Arzigul Tursun, who is 26 weeks pregnant, to abort her unborn child because she has two other children. She is under watch at the Municipal Watergate Hospital in Yining in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, which is populated with Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority. Supporters are concerned that a forced abortion at such a late stage could threaten Arzigul’s health. According to the Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project, Arzigul and her husband, Nurmemet, fled their village when she became pregnant, but returned after officials warned their house and property would be seized if Arzigul did not have an abortion. US Representative Christopher Smith, a New Jersey Republican, wrote to China’s ambassador to Washington, Zhou Wenzhong, last week to demand the forced abortion not be carried out. China maintains a one-child-per-family rule on majority Han Chinese. Minority urban couples may have two children, while rural farmers may have three.
FORCED ABORTION IN CHINA
A storm of international protest is building over a Chinese ruling that a Muslim Uighur woman who is six months pregnant must have an abortion or lose her home.
