China is to reduce the number of abortions performed for “nonmedical purposes,” the country’s Cabinet said in guidelines issued yesterday that it said were aimed at improving women’s reproductive health.
China has already enacted strict measures aimed at preventing sex-selective abortions, and health authorities also warned in 2018 that the use of abortion to end unwanted pregnancies was harmful to women’s bodies and risks causing infertility.
The Chinese State Council said the new guidelines were also aimed at improving women’s overall access to pre-pregnancy health care services.
Photo: AFP
From 2014 to 2018, there had been an average of 9.7 million abortions per year, rising about 51 percent from the 2009-2013 average, despite a relaxation of family planning policies in 2015, Chinese National Health Commission data showed.
The data did not specify how many abortions were for medical reasons.
It was not immediately clear whether the new measures were designed at addressing China’s declining birthrate, which think tanks and policy researchers have identified as one of its major social policy challenges in the coming decades.
Although China remains the world’s most populous nation, the latest census showed that population growth from 2011 to last year was the slowest since the 1950s, and was expected to slow even more within a few years.
After years of trying to limit population growth, Beijing is promising new policies aimed at encouraging families to have more children.
It said in June that it would allow all couples to have three children instead of two. Policies designed to reduce the financial burden of raising children are also being introduced.
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