1 in 3 Pregnancies Aborted in 1984, Chinese Report
PEKING — China released figures Tuesday showing that about a third of all pregnancies in the country last year were aborted. Health Ministry officials told a press briefing there were about 18 million births in China in 1984 and 8.89 million abortions.
The officials strongly denied that authorities forced abortions as part of efforts to restrict population growth.
“Is it possible to force hundreds of millions of people to do what they do not want to do?” one official said. “Coercion is not permitted in any circumstances.”
China insists that most couples have only one child in an attempt to keep the population down to 1.2 billion by the end of the century. The country already has more than 1 billion people.
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