Reggie Littlejohn, founder and president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, spoke about China's one-child policy on Oct. 9, 2014 at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)
(CNSNews.com) –- At an event on Thursday at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., Reggie Littlejohn, founder and president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, used a Chinese Communist Party official’s statistic to point out how many babies have been aborted in the 34 years since the one-child per couple policy was put in place.
“Forced abortion is not a choice,” Littlejohn said. “The Chinese Communist Party has become the enemy of the people, and has boasted that it has prevented 400 million lives through the one child policy.”
“That is a greater number than the entire population of the United States and Canada combined,” Littlejohn said, citing the two countries with a combined population of 351 million – 316 million in the U.S. and 35 million in Canada.
That figure – 400 million – could be much higher today, as it comes from a member of Congress and a press release he issued after a closed-door meeting with China’s Minister of Health in 2011.
Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), longtime champion of human rights in the U.S. Congress, spoke about China's one-child policy on Oct. 9, 2014 at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)
“Gao Qiang, through an interpreter, told members in attendance that the population of China is 400 million people less than what it would have been if it were not for these population control policies,” the press release issued by Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) stated.
"I was shocked to hear a Chinese official admit how many people have been lost as a result of the country's population control policy," Congressman Huelskamp said at the time. "The fact that this policy has resulted in the loss of more people than the overall population of the United States is an eye-opening figure.”
Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and chairman of its subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Health Rights and International Organizations, was the keynote speaker at the event. He called the one-child policy, which is implemented by forcing women who already have a child to have an abortion, “the most egregious, vicious attack on women ever.”
“China’s one-child policy announced in 1979 is state-sponsored violence against women and children – including and especially the girl child – and constitutes massive crimes against humanity,” said Smith, who noted in his prepared remarks that in his 17 terms in office he has held 50 hearings “in whole or in part” on the one-child policy.
Also on the discussion panel was Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese lawyer and activist who was jailed and tortured for his work to help women being forced to have abortions, and who now has asylum in the United States thanks, in part, to the efforts of Smith and Littlejohn.
Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese lawyer and human rights activists who was jailed for fighting the government's one-child policy and who now has asylum in the U.S., spoke on Oct. 9, 2014 at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)
Guagcheng, who was warmly applauded by the large audience, said the Communist Chinese government and its one-child policy have “demoralized Chinese society.”
“I know of no other person on Earth who has personally suffered so much for attempting to stop this cruelty to women,” Smith said of Chen. “He is a hero.”