The Beijing Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital cited the original Ministry of Health’s regulations sixteen years ago as a defense—Article 13 of the “Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Standards” (Wike Kejiaofa [2003] No. 176): “Prohibition against non-compliance with national population and plans Fertility laws and regulations require couples and single women to implement human assisted reproductive technology.”
The court announced the postponement of the trial. When Xu Zaozao walked out of the door of the court, he found that he had been waiting for several reporters and people who cared about the matter. In a hurry, she held a simple press conference in the cafe. At that time, she had not realized that she was about to appear on the microblog hot search of the day as the “China’s first single female frozen egg case”, and became the subject of coverage in major domestic media, and even appeared on the “New York Times” and BBC. And other well-known international media.
(Xu Zaozao press conference photo source: Alan)
The term “frozen egg” first entered the Chinese people’s horizon in 2015. Actress Xu Jinglei publicly stated that she had frozen nine eggs abroad, calling it “the only regret medicine in the world.” In an interview in Hong Kong, she said: “It’s really about saving yourself a choice, because I think the most scary thing people have is no choice.”
Four years later in Beijing, Xu Zaozao said: “I want the right to choose freely. If I freeze my eggs, I will not necessarily choose to recover in the future. But if I don’t even have the opportunity to do this multiple choice question Yes, I am definitely unwilling.“
@新金融Initiated a vote on Weibo “Do you support domestic open frozen eggs?” Attracted 110,000 people to participate, up to 92.6% of voters ( 102,000 people) agreed.
The emergence of new things will cause concern and debate, but after a while everyone will understand and adapt. ”
In September 2002, the “People and Family Planning Regulations of Jilin Province” was reviewed and approved, and only one of the 47 members objected. Article 28 of the Regulations stipulates, “Women who reach the legal age of marriage and decide not to marry and have no children may adopt legal medical assisted reproductive techniques to have a child.”
The controversy will follow. Some people questioned that this clause was purely a show, “clearly a farce”, and some believed that this clause would bring about many problems such as single-parent families, parenting, ethics, etc. To this, Zhang Wenxian’s response was very straightforward-“Worrying people” .
“Generally speaking, women with higher education and good economic conditions will have this kind of childbirth appeal, and the child’s growth education is not a problem. There are other things such as the “parenting problem” “single-parent family problem” and so on, those who are not Because the promulgation of this regulation brings about a long-standing social problem, it should be resolved by national legislation or other regulations. It is not correct to sublimate this method of birth to a moral and ethical level. This is just a kind of Lifestyle choices only.” Zhang Wenxian responded.
Jiang Guomin, who is already the Director of the Regulations Division of the Provincial Family Planning Commission, is very busy, but he was still interviewed by 21st Century Global Report, Sina Watch and other media in the same year –
“In foreign countries, people’s reproductive rights are fully affirmed and protected, and generally do not interfere. We put forward this kind of single birth policy under the premise of family planning, which is to respect and respect the minority women’s reproductive rights Sure. I think this is a good thing. When we formulated and decided this policy, the vast majority agreed to pass it. The more experts and intellectuals who understand sociology and demography, the more they agree.”
In 2018, a Caixin reporter found Jiang Guomin and retired from the Deputy Inspector of the Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission. He no longer wanted to talk about the past.
Although the parties did not want to mention it, Jilin’s past was not forgotten.
In September 2016, single female horse households in Changchun City, Jilin Province (pseudonym) went to Changchun City Maternity Hospital and other fourThe assisted reproductive qualification hospitals consulted. The hospitals refused to perform artificial assisted reproductive surgery for horses on the grounds that they could not do it without marriage. Some doctors said that if the operation was performed on her, they were suspected of breaking the law, and some doctors said that they did not know that Jilin had a single person. Provisions for women to have children.
Ma Hu contacted a staff member of the Publicity Department of the Jilin Health and Family Planning Commission and learned that when the regulations were promulgated, there were indeed one or two single women who gave birth to their children through the regulations. The staff said that the Family Planning Commission did not make relevant publicity. “This thing cannot be publicized because the country does not promote singletonism.”
According to a report by the Beijing Youth Daily in 2002, Zhao Bingli, then deputy director of the National Family Planning Commission, stated that the National Family Planning Commission had explicitly recommended that Jilin Province delete this provision in the Regulations.
But fifteen years later, when National People’s Congress representative Dai Hairong proposed to amend the “People’s Republic of China Population and Family Planning Law” to guarantee the birth rights of single women, the National Health and Health Commission again used Jilin as a model for local exploration: “ In practice, individual regions have formulated relevant regulations based on actual conditions. For example, Jilin Province adopted the Jilin Province Population and Family Planning Regulations at the 32nd meeting of the Ninth Standing Committee of the Ninth National People’s Congress on September 27, 2002, which stipulates that the decision to reach the legal age for marriage Women who are no longer married and have no children can adopt legal medical assisted reproductive technology to give birth to a child’. After subsequent revisions, Jilin Province has retained this provision.” Whether a child is born as a result, the National Health and Health Commission gives In contrast to Jilin Province’s answer, “It is understood that over 10 years since the implementation of the regulation, there has not been a single woman applying for a medical method to give birth.”
The birth road
Xu Qi, a researcher at the School of Sociology at Nanjing University, said in an interview that there are no statistics specifically for non-marital birth groups in China. They are people who are “ignored” by statistics. Taking the most authoritative census as an example, only statistics have been counted. For married women who have children, unmarried women default. Wan Haiyuan, deputy researcher of the National Development and Reform Commission Research Institute, conducted a field survey on “black households” and found that out of 1928 effective black households distributed in 15 provinces across the country, out-of-wedlock births accounted for 10.1%. The sixth census data shows that there are no household registrations in the country There are 13 million people, and it is estimated that there are over one million non-marital births in China.
According to the author’s interview, single-birth women can be roughly divided into the following three situations:
1. Originally had a partner and broke up after pregnancy; or for reasons of not going through the marriage registration process, giving birth to a child in a single state. 25-year-old Zeng Zhiqing (pseudonym) her boyfriend left her when she was four months pregnant. When she learned that due to ovarian reasons, if she lost her child, it might be difficult to have a chance to have a baby again, she decided Give birth to the child. Leaf (pseudonym) due to the unstable relationship with her boyfriend, until the birth of the child did not receive the certificate, “I don’t want to be forced because of pregnancy I received the card, and I was worried that if I broke up, I would have the problem of competing for custody. “
2. Without a partner and no plans to get married at the moment, I personally want to give birth to a child when I am single. (pseudonym) is just such a situation, after experiencing emotional setbacks, “lost confidence in men” “I don’t want to I’ll just find a man for the sake of having a baby.” Li Ying, who teaches at the university, (pseudonym) said, “It’s my own business to have a baby, is there anything I do, I am not Want my child for the other half.”
3. Lesbian community. A “Lara” confessed to the author that she believes that heterosexual women take the initiative to choose to have children out of wedlock. “Most of them are shouting and do not want to get married, but they still get married if they meet the right.” The sexual orientation of “Lara” determines She gave birth to a child who was reluctant to form a family with a man and was not able to marry a same-sex partner. She could only give birth in a single birth.
For the latter two groups of people, if they want to become pregnant, the first question they face is – where does the sperm come from?
In China, the sperm bank is only open to married couples. Single women do not have a formal channel for obtaining sperm. They can only find sperm donors and complete fertilization through IUI and other methods. . You can buy IUI devices on Taobao and complete the fertilization at home.
( Including sperm, medical treatment, air tickets, accommodation, etc.).
(sperm purchased by Momo’s girlfriend, picture provided by the interviewee)
Momo’s girlfriend wanted her baby after she turned thirty. She once watched college roommates basking in the WeChat group every day. Finally, she dropped out of the group chat. Although the two picked sperm in October 2018, they didn’t go to Cambodia “this very third world country” for the first time until July 2019. “I’m not sure to go so far to do this. Is this kind of thing worthwhile?” She also heard similar sighs from other women—“In order to have a baby, it takes so long and so far to come to a country you are completely unfamiliar with.”< /strong>
Because artificial assisted reproductive technology cannot be legally used in the country, some women with reasonable income choose to go abroad to freeze eggs or do artificial insemination, and related cross-border fertility services have also emerged. The author contacted a medical consulting company in Nanjing that provides overseas fertility services and consulted with Ms. Guo, the company’s “conception assistant”.
The company is mainly engaged in fertility services in Thailand. In Thailand, it is not legal for single women to undergo assisted reproductive surgery. Miss Guo said that they can PS marriage certificate, “Identities and donations (sperm) We will arrange the hospital, you don’t have to worry about it, and said this SurgeryOnly the United States is legal in the world”-in fact, Russia, Australia, Denmark, Israel and other countries allow single women to perform assisted reproductive surgery.
Ms. Guo said that their sperm source was not a sperm bank, but someone was looking to donate sperm, and two pictures were sent.
(Source: Miss Guo)
When the author asked if HIV testing could be done half a year after sperm donation like Sperm Bank, Ms. Guo said, “Sperm banks are all blind donations, how can I test again after half a year”, and said “Sperm Bank sperm you I don’t even know what the other person looks like, what he looks like, what his education is, why don’t I choose a blind donation, is it not a better choice?”
However, the sperm bank can not only see the sperm donor’s education, height, blood type and other information, but also can see the photos of the sperm donor in childhood or even adulthood. The purchaser is not aware of the sperm donor.
(Cryos Sperm Bank’s tips on donor photos, the text on the left is “Get a photo of the donor’s adulthood” Image source: Cryos official website)
The cost of frozen eggs in the quotation provided by Miss Guo is more than 50,000 yuan, which is more than double the price of frozen eggs in Wuhan, and the cost of IUI is more than 30,000. She said that it would cost at least 25,000 yuan to buy sperm. “Hospital operations may charge a little more, about a few thousand yuan.”
(Quote provided by Miss Guo)
Compared with spending heavily on overseas beggars, Alan chose a more unique path – in January 2019, she posted a video “Sperm Donor·Alan” on the Internet to openly solicit sperm donors . When she was sitting in the auditorium of the Xu Zaozao frozen egg case, she was pregnant for nearly six months.
(screenshot of the video “Sperm Seeker · Alan”)
After the video was released, Alan met five interested men one after another. But she gradually realized that she still hopes to have an emotional basis with sperm donors, “This relationship does not have to be love.”
In the end, she chose an acquaintance/202007/07/151445052534.jpg?imageView2/2/w/1000/format/jpg/interlace/1/q/85″ data-w=”815″ data-h=”1205″>
(Administrative Ruling of Shanghai Higher People’s Court, pictures provided by interviewees)
The court did not support Zhang Meng, but some people’s deputies were on her side.
Since November 2019, Zhang Meng and the volunteers of the “Multiple Family Network” have written to deputies to the National People’s Congress, hoping that deputies will pay attention to the situation of single-birth women. At present, they have sent more than 300 registered letters to the representatives of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Jilin.
(registered letter sent to the NPC deputies by volunteers from the “Multiple Family Network”, pictures provided by the interviewees)
In a letter to the Shanghai Municipal People’s Congress, Zhang Meng wrote:
“Relevant departments have told me that this child is “unplanned”, and the “unplanned” birth is rejected by one vote… Now that it is already a “birth registration” system, how do you still use the word “unplanned” What? How many lives can be strictly planned?
“Social security is for those who need it. The weaker the more special, the more need to be protected. The unmarried child-bearing group needs more care than the married group, but it is deprived of basic living resources during childbirth. This is actually indirect Tell unmarried women who are pregnant first or not to marry or have miscarriages, and tell those single women that you do not want to have children unless they are married. In essence, this is a serious violation of women’s basic personal rights. Even if a single mother has already paid taxes, For the payment of social security and other activities, it is also necessary for a person to raise children hard, but they do not get equal social resources.When the legal system violates basic ethics and social common sense, it is”Remarks”>(1995) further proposed that socio-economic factors have constructed the background of birth inequality, and cultural ideology and national policies have exacerbated this inequality. Cultural recognition and policy support allow married groups to be empowered to give birth; on the contrary, stigmatization of unmarried births and policy discrimination (such as expropriated society Child support, no access to maternity insurance) and the pressure of support have made single women afraid to conceive, and even have more choices for abortion even if they are pregnant, which essentially deprives the single group of the right to give birth.
In China, the situation is more special-births are firmly tied to national plans. my country’s proposal of the concept of reproductive rights is accompanied by restrictions on reproductive rights. The 1982 Constitution treats birth as an obligation(“The state promotes family planning to adapt population growth to economic and social development; both spouses have plans to implement Obligation of childbirth”); The Women’s Rights and Interests Protection Law of 1992 emphasizes that women’s childbearing must follow national regulations (“Women have It stipulates the right to have children and also the freedom to not have children”).
In March 2002, at the symposium on local population and family planning legislation, Zhang Chunsheng, deputy director of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, made the following statement: “Those who are born, precede the country, precede Legal rights, such as the right to childbirth, are legally not deprivable.” But he also emphasized, “There can only be one boundary. When exercising your personal rights, you must not violate the state, collective, social and The rights of others.”
How is it that the personal birth “infringes the rights of the country” is a difficult problem. From the strict implementation of family planning to the full liberalization of the second child, in the changing policy, the birth path of single women has always been difficult. But in the end, the women who took this path did not look back. From Xu Zaozao to Zhang Meng, they learned to use internal and external methods and system games to fight for the reproductive rights of single women.
On April 24, 2020, Xu Zaozao issued a document on the public account of “Multiple Family Networks” to raise lawsuit fees. In the “Zaozao Frozen Egg Support Group” that was subsequently established, a netizen named “Xiaoyu” left a message: “I am a mother of nearly fifty, and I am very supportive. My daughter has already As a freshman, I don’t need frozen eggs myself. But I hope my daughter can live in a more equal and respectful society.”
Note: This article is excerpted from Li Yuhua’s graduation design “”Birth” Cannot Help Oneself-China’s Single Women’s Birth Road”
References:
Jilin’s “Single Women Can Have Children” policy is launched: a survey on the right to have children. 21st Century Global Report.
http://news.sohu.com/21/45/news204444521.shtml, 2002-11-19
Women can have children without getting married: don’t waste legislation resources. Southern Metropolis Daily. 2002-11-20
Director of Policies and Regulations Department of Jilin Family Planning Commission: a new birth culture. Sina Watch.
http://health.enorth.com.cn/system/2002/11/15/000454871.shtml,2002-11-15
Response to Recommendation No. 3395 of the Fifth Session of the Twelfth National People’s Congress. National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China.
http://www.nhc.gov.cn/zwgk/jianyi/201712/8a24174d2522466997c6942c65052ce5.shtml, 2017-12-27