When various Republican presidential candidates blasted Biden for the statement, NPR’s blog ran a story titled, “Biden’s Comment on China’s One-Child Policy Spurs Anti-Abortion Ire.” This really misses the point. The media predictably frame this issue as “pro-choice vs. pro-life” when in fact it is a major human rights issue. In particular, it’s a women’s rights issue, which makes the silence from feminists and liberals about Biden’s comment particularly disturbing.

Reggie Littlejohn, an American attorney who founded Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, told a reporter, “China’s one-child policy causes more violence against women and girls than any other policy on earth, than any official policy in the history of the world.”

The evil ripple effects for girls of China’s gendercide are astonishing. Because of the dearth of wives, Ling says that trafficking of child brides is epidemic. She told Congress in June that “this is the kidnapping and selling of toddler girls to be raised as slaves. Today in China, 200,000 children a year, usually from poor families,” are seized or sold as child brides.” Similarly, sex trafficking is exploding to “service” the overwhelming male population. Ling says girls from surrounding countries are kidnapped or lured under false pretenses and forced to work in brothels.