One
Child Policy was introduced by People's Republic of China government in
1978 and initially applied to first-born children in the year of 1978. It was
created to alleviate social, economic, and environmental problems in China, and
authorities claim that the policy has prevented between 400 million births from
1979 to 2011. The policy has been implicated in an increase in forced abortions, female infanticide, and underreporting of female
births, and has been suggested as a possible cause behind China's gender
imbalance. In March 2011, the Chinese government reviewed the policy and
expressed considerations to allow for couples to have a second child (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy).
Here is a story of about a young
Indonesian guy who married with a lovely Chinese woman and blessed with two cute daughters.
According to the Chinese law if any
of the child’s parents is Chinese so the baby will be Chinese as well, which
means his wife and the children are bound to the One Child Policy.
When his wife was carrying their
second baby; they heard rumor that the Family Planning Bureau may force her to
abort the baby. The staffs of the bureau came to their house few times, luckily
when she was not at home. They also had
to find a hospital out of city to give the baby birth, since the hospital in
their city will not issue the birth certificate for the second child before they
did other procedures. Indonesia
government recognizes double citizenship for children under 18 years old of a
mix marriage, but unfortunately the Chinese government doesn’t. Even though all
their children have Indonesian passport, the Chinese immigration wouldn’t
recognize their Indonesian passport and would issue a Chinese passport instead
of visa.
The child has to be registered in
their Family Card in order to enroll to a school or to get a passport or an ID
card. In their city, when registering
the second child in their Family Card, the parents should also provide a
sterilization certificate of one of the parents besides paying the fine (the amount is different each city), which is
not cheap at all. He said, “We will
never put a price for our baby’s life so no matter how expensive the fine, we will
pay it.” They should pay RMB 120,000.00
(approx USD. 19,000.00), which is half of the fine as he is not a Chinese
because the law only applies to Chinese citizens. They surely will not able to
pay, thanks be to God that their parents are willing to help to pay it.
As faithful Catholics, he knows that
according to the Church teaching, contraception is an intrinsic evil. A local priest said that for the greater good, he
was given a kind of dispensation to do it, moreover this is never on his
freewill. His conscience still says “no”
for sterilization. Another priest said
that there should not be any dispensation given to something intrinsically evil
and his friend, who is an apologist, said that the principle of double effect
couldn’t be applied here also. His
wife’s pregnancies were not so smooth so the doctor suggested them not to have
any more children. He feels so blessed that her wife gave him full support not
to undergo any of contraceptive procedure. He said, “I am just trying to be a
faithful Catholic.” Their baby is seven month
old now without any identity and they are waiting in prayers that the
conditions will change in the near future so their second daughter can go to
school.
Guangzhou, March 27, 2012
Sr.
Anastasia B. Lindawati, M.M.
Let’s
do simple things with simple love to make God’s love visible
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