Communist China's family values

Forcibly aborting eight- and nine-month fetuses was common, as was infanticide. In her unblinking documentary One Child Nation, Chinese-American filmmaker Nanfu Wang interviewed party officials, relatives, and midwives who testified to their own acts. One midwife, now 85, said she exclusively helps infertile couples now to “atone” for all the babies she killed in her career. “The policy was from the state,” she said. “But I was the executioner. My hands trembled as I did it.” A monk told her that every child she helps bring into the world compensates for 100 that she killed. Another family planning official who also participated in countless forced sterilizations, abortions, and infanticides recalled that as their babies were taken from them, the women would “scream, cry, go crazy. Sometimes they’d run away and we’d have to chase them down.” Was it cruel, she was asked? It was the policy, she shrugged, and she had to separate her private feelings from her duty.