The policy itself isn't cruel or brutal, but the enforcement can be terrible.

Brutal and cruel acts include:

* Killing of child immediately after birth

* Killing of child whilst being born, e.g. in birth canal during birth

* Termination of pregnancy as late as 8.5 months

* Forced abortions (incorporating kidnapping and assault)

All of these things have happened routinely as part of enforcement of the "one child" policy in China and have been widely reported on by human rights organisations. See for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy#Human_rights_...

The policy has also encouraged infanticide/gendercide, corruption, child abandonment, neglect, and abuse.

Just to make it clear, these types of enforcement are not norms. The law never suggested such enforcement. The law is that you get a financial fine if you have more than one child, that's it. It's actually against the law to force any kind of abortion. That being said, in some rural area, some officials maybe so greedy to make achievement for their "career" that they "enforce" this policy by breaking the law.

Some of the examples you listed have only one report. And it's policy that lasted almost 40 years in a country with a billion people.

> Just to make it clear, these types of enforcement are not norms

Back up your statement with a citation please. Considering that they explicitly made forced abortions of these kinds illegal (although this is hardly enforced) implies that it was a big enough problem the government needed to step in.

> Considering that they explicitly made forced abortions of these kinds illegal (although this is hardly enforced) implies that it was a big enough problem the government needed to step in.

The officials are not dumb, they probably saw the incentives structure and decided to ban this proactively.

GP has a good point. Singular events in few decades in a population of over a billion? That's either bullshit or random fluke, depending on how charitable you want to be towards the report, but it's definitely not something a reasonable person should care about.

His source is the same as yours, if you read your own source.

> in some rural area

I spent a summer in Beijing in 1998 and knew a young lady whose unborn baby was forcibly killed. So I don't buy "in some rural area".

This was a lot more common in many rural areas than your post is suggesting.

Source: (in chinese, please use Google Translation) http://www.21ccom.net/articles/zgyj/fzyj/article_20120629627...

i've lived in China for a few years, and no one's ever seemed to care much about the one child policy. i just asked some people, and they said it depends on where you grew up, but that it hasn't ever really been a big deal for at least their lifetimes (~30 years).

you have to understand that laws here usually range from completely unenforced to strong discouragement with possible financial implications.

it wouldn't surprise me if there were incidents of the stuff you mention, but doesn't seem like any of it was ever common place.

The context you likely have is that of the more urbanized parts of China - not the rural towns and villages where most of the more extreme ("brutal and cruel") practices take place.

yeah, i know, i live in a big city. but i'm talking to some people that came from rural areas... no one's even heard of this stuff. that in no way means it doesn't happen - China's a really big place - but it certainly doesn't seem to be the status quo.

friends actually said the opposite: people in rural areas would tend to have a lot of kids trying for a boy (something about boys getting to go to school and being able to work the farm), though i guess that's getting better with the education and gender equality stuff.

did you grow up in one of those areas or something? or know people that did? which areas are you talking about?

Enforcement have been fairly lax in the last decade or two across the country. For every "unplanned" childbirth you can pay a one-off fine (Social Maintenance is the current euphemism) which is probably more like a poll tax based on your income (with caps in certain regions) and your offspring is readily accepted into society.

The main contention is that people who work in the public sector (which is giant in China) does not have the option because it is still, technically, illegal and will ruin your chances of promotion within the party or any state-owned enterprises. The law change merely levels the playing field for public sector workers so they have one less incentive to leave.

Also abandoning baby girls b/c they want a boy to carry on their name. Really interesting the effects of laws in the Macro.

At the risk of getting massively downvoted:

Most of the brutal and cruel acts you listed are a result of carrying a child to birth. Surely they would have noticed that they were pregnant and had the opportunity to abort at an earlier time. Better yet, why couldn't they just... not have children? Do they not have access to contraception?

No one's denying that. "Brutal and cruel" was referring to forced abortions of pregnant women with more than one child.

Perhaps nobody's denying that China doesn't value personal freedom as highly as the west does, or that you can have a beautiful, rich and fullfilling life with 2 children or less.

Some, myself included, do deny that it could benefit the earth if more governments would enforce limits on children. I think humans are important to the future of the earth, and treating them in a cruel and brutal fashion will cause more problems than it solves.

You're in luck. human overpopulation is mostly a solved problem thanks to modern contraception. To curb it all one needs is to build a robust economy and make it avaliable. No need for state policy beyond it, people will do it themselves.

http://www.economist.com/node/14743589

This can be seen in the animal kingdom as well.

Larger creatures, and those higher on the food chain, having greater access to resources and higher survival rates, invest more in fewer children. Smaller creatures, with lesser access to resources and higher mortality rates, invest less in more children.

A rabbit doe can theoretically have 480 offspring, at 12 per litter, 10 times per year, over 4 years. That's the kind of thing you might do if 98% of your kids get eaten, because you will still have 10 left. Rabbits can also abort their litters when stressed.

An elephant might have one calf every four years, over 55 years, or a maximum of 14 children. That's what you might do if only one other species can reliably kill any of you, and you expect all of your babies to survive to adulthood.

With humans, the observed historical behavior is that poor or uneducated humans are relatively fecund, producing 8-30 children per pair, occasionally with multiple births. As wealth and education increase, and particularly when child mortality drops and elder care becomes socialized, birth rate drops down to the population replacement rate (or below). Middle-class first-worlders usually have 0-4 kids.

It solved the problem so well that the human race is actually likely to go extinct over the long run. Just need to get Africa and India on board with the program.

US, Japan, and EU have negative population growth if you exclude immigration. What more do you want?

Africa and India to play ball. The wealthy West limiting its procreation doesn't buy much for the Earth when somewhere else, poor families are pumping out children by the dozens.

Africa and India don't have widely available contraception, high levels of education, and low rates of infant mortality. Solve those problems and people will have fewer kids.

Exactly. I totally agree.

The westerners are consuming far more resources per family of 4 than the African family of 10

Yes, but we are a) not growing, b) moving to greener energy sources. Compare with Africa and Asia exiting poverty with positive growth, lots of people, and little clean energy infrastructure.

I'm starting to think it's in our best interest to start building nuclear reactors pro bono all over Africa - you don't want them all to rise their standards of living by burning coal.

I completely agree with you. In terms of population alone, we are exceedingly multiplying; something that might not be of out best advantage. More even when you consider that there will be less opportunities for an increasing number of people, and we will lose this personal freedom you spoke of -to an extent-

I am also pro child limit laws. I would suggest nothing too strict, just impose a tax on the third child and up. We know from psychology that little restrictions and the mere fact of a 'cost' would reduce the intrinsic desire of people to even take an action, in this case child bearing. Furthermore, I think a tax is a not an extreme measure, considering the fact that you would still be allowed to have children if you want. But do keep in mind that the poorest, less educated are often the ones to have plenty of children, which ends up harming the family, this might be good for them.

Human ingenuity is the world's greatest resource and leads to wealth creation and advancement of living standards. Limiting population growth would be ill-advised.

The problem with this line of thinking is that "someone in the future will fix our problems" doesn't inspire much assurance.

Some believe we should limit growth now, thus potentially preventing the problem before it becomes, well, a problem.

Nobody is suggesting nobody has children. People will still be born, discoveries made etc.

While in essence I agree, I think it is much more nuanced and complicated.

Inequality seems to be deeply encoded in the system. Capacity, in my opinion, only makes sense if you extrapolate from an average human, but there is no such thing as an average human being. However, I don't think it is an exaggeration that our western way of life is not sustainable on a global scale. I wish the fruits of human ingenuity could be enjoyed by every single one of us, but unfortunately it seems utopian.

In what year was the average, or even marginal person better off? Yes, there may be more income distribution, but would you prefer to be born into a different time under the veil of ignorance?

Even the poorest in our society have incredible access to goods.

Just to list a few:

Wikipedia

Ability to talk to relatives from across the world to little or no cost (Skype and alternatives)

Ability to send money and store wealth cheaply (low cost ETFs, bitcoin, free checking)

Social acceptance of previously marginalized lifestyles

Access to wide variety of foods and entertainment

There has never been a better time to be alive, and I expect that to continue, despite greater inequality.

That is, if the population growth doesn't destabilize the economies and make us revert back to the old times. That's the crux of the issue. The rising tide is lifting all the boats, but we need to make sure the tide keeps rising.

I suggest you read up on the carrying capacity of Earth.

How is it that we're on a technology forum and people continually insist that we've achieved the maximum rate of advancement? Also we most certainly do not spend all of our resources advancing areas of technology that would sustain more people, for instance I think there could easily be more research put into food growth/production/sustainability and perhaps things like housing development than are currently being done, but since there is no impending doom from overpopulation we tend to spread our interests around as the free-ish market allows. Everything we produce isn't going to make it easier for more people to survive, but I'm sure much could be done if it became a priority.

Some of us wish we'd be smarter than free market and have the ability to allocate resources proactively, instead at the last possible minute, when prices finally start to reflect the impending doom. Noticing that Earth has a carrying capacity and that we have to do something about it (either stop growing, lower our footprint or extend that capacity) is expressing the belief that we can do better.

I didn't insist anything. I simply suggested reading about carrying capacity. It's a relevant topic to population control, and it could broaden his understanding of the issue.

The "carrying capacity" of earth is well, well above (constantly revised) estimates.

What will need to change is the efficiency of how we as a species make use of the earth. We can feed many times the current world population easily. We can house many times the current world population easily. What we can't accomplish is doing those things the same way we do things now.

Advances in agriculture, energy and housing are needed. Advances which are happening as we furiously type at each other.

Either we all die horribly or we'll all be fine.

I would put any research or estimates into perspective. We have well surpassed predicted carrying capacities, but maybe these estimates are different?

Example:

> In a 1994 study titled Food, Land, Population and the U.S. Economy, David Pimentel and Mario Giampietro estimated the maximum U.S. population for a sustainable economy at 200 million

The dangers of over-population myth assumes a naive view of a static society. For instance, we can reasonably have X land for food production, from that we can grow Y food and that can feed Z people so anything above Z would be harmful. The problem is that Y is dependent on human innovation and technology. Same can be said for most resources. We never did reach peak oil.

These predictions of inevitable decline have been wrong for a long time. I don't know why you put so much faith into the modern day equivalents.

Additionally, Z is dependent on social and economic pressures. As the world becomes more urbanized, birth rates have been going down because it is becoming more expensive to raise children. This is occurring naturally without artificial limits imposed.

The carrying capacity of Earth is seemingly revised constantly. The overpopulation crisis we imagined decades ago never materialized.

As much as I agree that the earth is overpopulated, I think better than taxing people is providing access to free birth control. A lot of people don't have access to it, or education about it.

Having many children is an economic issue, not access-to-birth-control issue. Poor families in third world countries will continue to mass-produce children because they can't afford not to. For the contraception to be used, we need to raise them out of poverty first.

I think lack of ability to plan when and if you have a family is a contributor to poverty in many places. Children are expensive and time consuming.

I've noticed here in the USA young girls getting pregnant and not being able to pursue higher education. I've also met some of my family in the Philippines who had many children by age 14. The husband's salary would pretty much all go to the children, and the wife would spend all day taking care of them. They are just trying to survive day to day-- little thought was given to trying to reach for anything higher.

Most people with access to birth control have children-- just when they're more ready for it. Not only does this make them more financially steady, but they are happier, and the same goes for their children.

"I find suggestive evidence that individuals’ access to contraceptives increased their children’s college completion, labor force participation, wages, and family incomes decades later." - Martha J. Bailey, an economics professor at the University of Michigan. Here's the article and link to her work. http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/09/the-long-term-effects-of-...