Chinese Woman Must Choose Between Second Child, Husband’s Job

China’s one-child policy: woman torn between an illegal abortion at 8 months and her husband’s government job.

A child in China playing with a shower. (Photo: AP)

A public outcry has been raised over the plight of a woman who’s considering an illegal abortion at 8 months because the child would violate China’s restrictive birth policy and would cost her husband his job as a police officer.

Members of the public have been phoning local officials in the couple’s Yunnan province community to inquire about the case, and an online travel service reportedly has offered the husband a position if he loses his government job.

The case has rekindled debate over whether employment in the public sector should be used to enforce the policy that limits urban couples to one child in cases where both husband and wife have at least one sibling.

The woman who wished to go by just Chen said the couple had hoped for a policy change that would allow them to have a second child but found herself unexpectedly pregnant earlier this year in violation of the current rule.