A couple have told Sky News how they were physically
forced into an abortion by the Chinese authorities, three months before
their child was due to be born.
At 4am last Friday, a group of 20 officials from the Shandong Province
Family Planning Commission forced their way into the home of Zhou
Guoqiang and his wife Liu Xinwen.The officials kicked down the door of the family's home. Mr Zhou was held down while his wife was pulled from her bed and taken away.
Liu Xinwen, 33, was taken to the People's Hospital of Fangzi District in Weifang City where she was injected with an abortion-inducing drug.
Her baby, which she would later discover was a boy, died a day later in her womb. It took a further day for the foetus to be delivered.
Her husband was not told where she had been taken. It took him five hours to find her at the hospital. By then, the injection had been given.
Sky News met the couple six days later. Mr Zhou had invited us to the family's modest home in a rural corner of the province to hear their story.
We found his wife lying in the bed she had been taken from a week earlier. She was sobbing quietly.
"I miss him." she said.
"I didn't get to see him. I would be even more upset if I had seen him.
"Baby, I'm sorry. We were not meant to be. You rest in peace in heaven. We will pray for you. We hope your next life is better."
Her heartbreak is the most brutal consequence of China's one-child policy.
The law is designed to keep the country's population in check. It prevents couples from having more than one child with a few exceptions in some rural provinces.
The policy is supposed to be enforced through financial penalties and not forced abortions. But in some provinces, over-zealous local officials, keen to keep within their birth quotas, break the law and terminate pregnancies by force.
"They don't have any humanity. They are not humans." Liu Xinwen said.
"They must have children and parents too. But they don't have any conscience. This is how China is."
Mr Zhou told how the officials held him down on the sofa while others took his wife away. In all, there were 16 male officials and four females.
We then sit down to look at photos he had taken in the hospital room. They are almost indescribably graphic.
One photograph shows Liu Xinwen lying on the bed. Beside her, on the floor, is a bucket. Inside is her aborted child.
Several other images show the foetus. It is fully formed.
"His nose, ears, mouth are all there." Mr Zhou said.
"It is a child that would have lived if not for the forced abortion. It's because of their cruelty. Look, his hand is very obvious."
Mr Zhou broke down as he recalled the moment he arrived in the hospital, just minutes after the injection had been administered.
"My wife was lying in bed. I asked her: 'Have you been injected?' She said 'yes'. I asked if the baby was still moving. She said 'not much'.
"After that, I didn't want my wife to see my crying. I went outside. I cried, but only for a while because I needed to return to comfort her. She was very sad. She cried, day and night.
"Every time I heard babies' voices from other wards, I could hardly control myself. I had to go out. I have lost my child. I am speechless, words can't describe my feelings."
He claimed that his wife was forced to sign papers which said she had agreed to the abortion.
When she initially refused, he said they told her that if she did not sign the papers, they would arrest her husband and she would have nothing. We have not been able to independently verify this.
The couple already have one son. Zhou Junfeng is 10. As we talk to his parents, he runs around the house playing. He is oblivious to the grief around him.
you can read the rest of the story at http://uk.news.yahoo.com/china-couple-speaks-forced-abortion-012157664.html#3ahUAJk
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