Monday, February 29, 2016

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Fetal development - 8 weeks pregnant

Approved by the BabyCentre Medical Advisory Board

Computer-generated image of embryo at 8 weeks with arms, legs, an eye and a mouth

This week, many changes take place in your baby, who now measures about 1.6cm. His embryonic tail is just about gone, and all his organs, muscles and nerves are beginning to function. In his brain, nerve cells are branching out to connect with one another, forming primitive neural pathways. Your baby's hands now bend at the wrist, and his feet are starting to lose their webbed appearance. His eyelids cover more of his eyes and tastebuds are forming on his tongue.
http://www.babycentre.co.uk/8-weeks-pregnant#ixzz41CsxShKw

The Miracle of Life: How it all began

The Case of Liu Dan
Woman Dies of Forced Abortion at Nine Months

When: February 28, 2009
Where: Jingang Town, Liuyang City, Hunan Province
Sources:
http://leiyz7205.blog.163.com/blog/static/16440572009317104439996/?hasChannelAdminPriv=true;
http://hi.baidu.com/%C9%AB%C8%D9/blog/item/0ff0d98e41c0f3e6f01f36a9.html

The 21 year-old pregnant girl Liu Dan (who didn’t get married because she wasn’t of legal marriagable age yet) may have never imagined that she and the child in her womb would die for her pregnancy.
Liu Dan and her fiancé Song Qingshan were classmates in Jinshen Middle School in Jingang Town. They didn’t pursue further education but went to work because of poverty in 2005. Liu Dan went to work in a firecracker factory. Liu Dan’s hard work and brightness made very good impression on Song Qingshan. And Song Qingshan favorably impressed Liu Dan. So they began dating in 2006. Liu Dan was pregnant in 2009, but they could not get married because Liu Dan hadn’t reached the legal marriage age. She moved to Song Qingshan’s house to stay with his family. Their parents performed an engagement for them in November 17th of Chinese Traditional Calendar. A PFPO worker named Zhu Xiying often went to Song Qingshan’s house to play cards. He knew that Liu Dan was pregnant but never mentioned it.
In the evening of February 26th 2009, two vans suddenly stopped before Song Huaijin’s house. A couple of people from the vans ran into Liu Dan’s room and kidnapped her before Song’s family could do anything. The vans headed towards the PFPC in Liuyang City. Liu Dan got an injection for induced abortion soon after, despite her cries. Later she was kept in a population and family planning station. Song’s family and Liu Dan’s mother arrived that night in the PFPC station.

In the afternoon of the second day, Liu Dan began to have signs of child delivery: her private parts began bleeding. When Liu Dan’s family members requested to send her to hospital, the Jingang Town PFPC workers immediately denied it. They said it was normal, and they would do the induced labor for Liu Dan. But sometime before this, Dayao Hospital had already examined Liu Dan and the examination results showed that Liu Dan’s due date was March 5th and abortion could be dangerous for her because of her high blood pressure and unclear amniotic fluid. Liu Dan herself strongly refused to sign for the induced labor; neither did her and Song Qingshan’s families. But the Jingang Town PFPO chief Qi Zhiqiang proclaimed that he could sign on behalf of Jingang Town Government and he would be fully responsible if an accident happened. So Liu Dan was forcibly sent to the PFPO’s operation room. Around midnight the dead fetus was born and no one knew the fetus’ sex because none of Liu Dan’s family members was allowed to enter the room.
At 3:00 a.m. Liu Dan became even weaker and bled. She bled much when doctors pushed on her belly. Sensing something was going wrong inside, Song Qingshan broke into the room and found Liu Dan was bleeding from nose, eyes, ears and mouth…… the PFPO didn’t even make emergency call until Liu Dan’s family strongly requested. As the doctors from Liuyang City hospital arrived, they immediately found that Liu Dan was in great danger and she could not afford to move to the hospital. So they gave emergency medical treatment in the room. Also they called for other equipment and doctors as a backup. But everything was too late. At about 6:00 a.m., Liu Dan shut her eyes forever after three hours of rescue efforts.
Liu Dan’s brother rushed back home from Beijing on hearing this. Since he was studying in the big city and knew more than his family members, he first tried to expose this to media. But all the newspapers hung up the phone on hearing it was about the Population and Family Planning Policy. However, some kind-hearted journalist gave this information to me as well.

The time I heard about this was the evening of March 3rd. On the next morning I drove to Liuyang City. To avoid conflict with the local government, I parked my news car in Dayao Town which was about 6 miles away from Jingang Town. Then I took a car to Liu Dan’s home -- Shihui Village. At that moment Liu Dan’s funeral was going on. On seeing a reporter coming, Liu Dan’s mother cried out loud and knelt down before me. She held my hands tightly and strongly asked for justice -- her young daughter could not die in vain! The official who signed for the induced labor had to pay for it! Crying could be heard all over the place. Liu Dan’s father was crying holding his daughter’s picture. The young had died before the old. Also Liu Dan’s classmates were full of tears. They said: “Liu Dan was a good girl. She liked to smile and everybody loved her.” There were several old ladies and maybe because they were a little deaf or couldn’t understand Mandarin, they said nothing but wept.
Later I went to Jingang Town Government with Song Qingshan’s father. In order to avoid unnecessary trouble, I proclaimed that I was a customer of Song’s father’s firecrackers. Entering the PFPO we found that all the PFPO workers who took Liu Dan to the forcible abortion were gone, and so was the PFPO staff picture. The mayor of the town tried to persuade Song Qingshan’s mother not to pursue this accident anymore. And they promised compensation. But Song’s mother said they just wanted justice and they didn’t fear death since Liu Dan already died. I took a picture of the remaining staff pictures on the wall secretly. When I was about to leave, my car was surrounded by some Municipal administration officials. They ordered the metal door shut to stop me from leaving. I was also questioned about my intention of being there. I said I was a customer of Song’s father and was finally released by the permission of their officers. I left the place as soon as I could.
P.S. From what I heard: After this incident, the mayor and secretary of Jinyang came to Liuyang City PFPO. They also wept with sympathy on seeing Liu Dan’s body. On the next day the mayor and secretary came to Liu Dan’s family and later they gave Liu Dan’s family about $46,000 from the government and the PFPO ($40,000 were from the PFPO). All the PFPO workers who had participated Liu Dan’s forcible abortion ran away after the incident, and no one came to apologize for what they did to Liu and Song’s families. Liu and Song’s families were basically satisfied with the local government’s compensation. But what they wanted to see most is that Qi Zhiqiang (who signed to authorize the forcibly induced labor) could be brought to justice. He is the one who directly caused Liu Dan and her child’s death.

The account of Liu Dan is Case 6 in the report submitted into the Congressional Record by Reggie Littlejohn, entitled

The Case of Wang Liping
Forcibly Aborted at Seven Months, Then Required to Pay

When: May 31 to June 3, 2005
Where: Diaoyutai Village, Guying Town, Huiji District, Zhenzhou City, Henan Province.
Source: “China Rights-Safeguarding Journalists”: http://www.wqjizhe.org.cn/
Reproduced in http://club.dayoo.com/read-bxhs-36152.htm###

The Population and Family Planning Office in Zhenzhou City Henan Province forcibly induced labor to expel a 7-month fetus and killed the fetus. This case evoked great anger in the society after it was exposed on the internet. The victim’s mother was named Wang Liping and lived in Diaoyutai Village Guying Town Huiji District Zhenzhou City, Henan Province. She was 23 years old and was pregnant from her boyfriend before their marriage. Wang Liping was forcibly taken to the hospital by the local Population and Family Planning Office and was subjected to forcibly induced labor, which led to the death of her seven-month fetus.
The victim’s statement:

My name is Wang Liping, female, Han Chinese and 23 years old. I am living in Diaoyutai Village, Guying Town, Huiji District, Zhenzhou City, Henan Province. I had a boyfriend for several years and we had not completed our marriage procedures because of our poverty. In August 2007 I was pregnant by him. My family was in great joy because I am the oldest daughter in my family and this was the first time I was pregnant. My family has had no children for more than 10 years so they were all very happy and considered it very important.
At around 6pm on March 31, 2008, I was stopped by a couple of people on the street in Guying Town. They asked me to go with them. They told me they were from Guying Population and Family Planning Office when I asked who they were. However, they didn’t show me their badges. They wanted to take me into their car but I refused to comply. So those people beat me up and dragged me to the Guying Hospital, PLA Air Force Hospital and Litang Hospital, and asked them to do induced labor on me. But none of those hospitals was willing to do that to me.
At 11:00 p.m., they took me to the Laoyachen Hospital, and forcibly induced labor on me without any examination or my signature. My seven-month unborn child was killed. At that time I was crying out loud for help and those people beat me up. They and some doctors and nurses pushed me onto the ground and took my pants off. Then they injected some medicine at my fetus’ location in my belly, and then they roped me onto a sickbed. I could not resist this and nobody came to help me. I could not imagine that this brutal and bloody behavior could happen in the civilized 21st century.
When the injected medicine began to take effect, I had great pain in my belly. At 3:00 a.m., on April 2nd, my almost-fully-developed child was born. My child even mournfully cried for some minutes, and later the crying ceased. I cried out for help for a long time until a yawning nurse came and shouted at me: “No more crying!” I said: “Please take a look at my baby.” That nurse took a glance and said it was dead and then put my baby beside me. I fainted on hearing this tragic news. When I woke up in the morning, there was a doctor standing by my bed and asked for money to “get rid of the fetus’ body.” I said I had no money and so they just used a plastic bag to wrap my baby and put it beside me.
I was totally crushed facing these Population and Family Planning workers, doctors and nurses who didn’t have any medical ethics or humanity. I could not imagine that I would be deprived of my human rights like this in a society ruled by law. I was not allowed contact with my family until April 3rd. During the time I lost contact with my family, my family members went to the Population and Family Planning Office asking for the legal basis of my forcibly induced labor and the death of my fetus. Those Population and Family Planning workers shouted at my family and drove my family members out of the government building. At the same time the Laoyachen Hospital again sent me a note asking for payment.
The lady lying on the bed is Wang Liping, and the dead fetus lying in the plastic bag was her child.

Be thankful for your children, not everyone gets to decide if they can keep them.

Testimony for Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission Hearing

November 10, 2009

Wujian, citizen of the People’s Republic of China

- MY “LITTLE FOOT,” MY LIFELONG PAIN -

My name is Wujian. I was born in a small village in northern China. During my daily life, I tried to smile at everyone while at the bottom of my heart there is engraved a record of an unforgettable experience from hell.

It was the winter of 2004 when I found out that I was pregnant. It was beautiful to sense this life growing inside of me: what a miracle! Meanwhile, I was also very fearful since I did not have the Permit for Pregnancy or the Birth Permit, which means, according to Chinese law, this baby was not allowed to be born into this world. This baby would have to die in my womb. During that time in my hometown, this was the law decided by the Chinese Family Planning policy which brought fear on every family. Not only were my parents and family at risk, but also my other relatives.

Time flew as the little baby grew daily in my womb. While the baby moved more and more actively in my body, the maternal love also increased. The word “MOM” was not just a word anymore; it became a reality in my life. My baby and I were one, sharing the same blood.

Pretty soon, my lower stomach began to bulge. In order to protect my baby, I had to hide myself in a very old, shabby house in a remote area. There was no electricity at all in the room, and it was very dark even during the day. Fear and loneliness filled me every day, but as long as I could have my baby, I could stand anything. Many times, I was wakened at night by nightmares, as I dreamed that I was hunted and arrested by the Family Planning government officials and forced to have an abortion.

Eventually, the Family Planning government officials found out about my pregnancy. So they searched all over trying to arrest me, and while they could not find me, then they caught my father instead. They put my father into the detention center and beat him every day. On the fourth day after they caught my father, one neighbor came and told me that my father was dying: they would continue beating my father – even to death – until I went to the local hospital to get abortion. My heart was broken into pieces as I faced this terrifying dilemma: either my father or my baby, one of them had to die, and I had to make the decision.

Very soon after this, the worst thing happened: when several Family Planning government officials broke into the house where I was hiding, and without any words, they drug me into their van.

As soon as I got into the van, I found that another Mom was already inside the van. She told me she was carrying her first baby, and that she was 28 years old. She did not have the Permit of Pregnancy or the Birth Permit, and she was 7 months pregnant. She was so eager to keep this baby that she was fighting with the government officers in the van. Suddenly, one government official at his 20's slapped her on the face and immediately her mouth began to bleed. Being thus insulted, she screamed like a lion and fought with the Family Planning government officials.

About one hour later, the van stopped in the hospital. As soon as I was drug out of the van, I saw hundred of pregnant Moms there – all of them, just like pigs in the slaughterhouse. Immediately I was drug into a special room, and without any preliminary medical examination, one nurse did Oxytocin injection intravenously. Then I was put into a room with several other Moms.

The room was full of Moms who had just gone through a forced abortion. Some Moms were crying, some Moms were mourning, some Moms were screaming, and one Mom was rolling on the floor with unbearable pain.

I was not very sensitive to the oxytocin injection, and then I was pulled into another small room. One nurse pulled out one, big, 8-inch long needle for intramuscular injection. I had never seen such big, long needle in my life. As soon as they pulled away my clothes, the nurse put her hand around my lower stomach; the fear and her cold hand caused my abdominal muscle to spasm. Because of that, for a while, the nurse could not do the injection.

At that moment, I was the only Mom in the room. I began begging the nurse while I cried, , “I have already had the oxytocin injection, please let me go; I will go as far away as possible and I will not tell anyone else what you had done for me and I will be grateful for you for the rest of my life.” The nurse did not respond to my begging—she looked like wood.

Then I kept saying to her, “You are an angel, as a nurse or a doctor who is helping people and saving peoples’ life; how could you become a killer by killing people every day?” I could hardly see her face because she wearied a big mask. Soon she became very angry at what I said, and told me that I talked too much. She also told me that there was nothing serious about this whole thing for her. She did these all year. She also told me that there were over 10,000 forced abortions in our county just for that year, and I was having just one of them. I was astonished by her words and I realized that my baby and I were just like a lamb on the cutting board. Finally, she put the big, long needle into the head of my baby in my womb. At the moment, it was the end of the world for me and I felt even time had stopped. I hardly knew that something worse would happen later.

After the injection, my baby became very quiet for a whole day. I was so naive that I thought I could leave the hospital because I had finished the forced injection. I wondered if perhaps my baby was lucky enough that s/he could survive.

To my great surprise, the next evening I was drug into a surgical room. I was asked to lie down on a surgical table; it was the Guillotine for me and for my baby. While I was lying down on the surgical table I found that there was bloody fingerprint on the wall, left by other Moms during their surgery of a forced abortion.

One doctor told me that I brought too much trouble to them already because my baby was supposed to flow out by itself after the injection. Since it did not come out as expected, they decided to cut my baby into pieces in my womb with scissors, and then suck it out with a special machine.

What I had done in my life that made me deserve this kind of punishment? What evil thing was this all about? Even a wild animal like a tiger will give her life to save their own baby tiger. As a Mom and a human being, could I not even protect the life of my baby?

I did not have any time to think as this most horrifying surgery began by force. I could hear the sound of the scissors cutting the body of my baby in my womb. I could feel that, little by little, my baby was cut into pieces; s/he was separated from my body. S/he was the flesh of my flesh, the bone of my bone, a part of my body. That kind of pain not only killed my body, but also killed my emotions and my feelings.

“How could I be a Mom? What’s wrong with me?” I cried while talking to my baby and I preferred to die together with my baby at that moment. Nothing sounded meaningful at all for me in this world: In fact, part of me had already died – part of me was already gone and gone forever!

Eventually the journey in hell, the surgery was finished, and one nurse showed me part of a bloody foot with her tweezers. Through my tears, the picture of the bloody foot was engraved into my eyes and into my heart, and so clearly I could see the five small bloody toes. Immediately the baby was thrown into a trash can…

Finally, I was allowed to go home from the hospital. I did not eat anything, or even drink any water, for several days. I barely talked with anyone. From time to time at home, I could hear the mourning of my father. He was released after I was caught, but he had been beaten terribly; it took him over a month to recover physically. Looking at my father, thinking of my dead baby, I cried day and night, and frequently the picture of the little bloody foot came up in my mind. Physically I recovered after about one month, but psychologically and spiritually – never!

At that time, I got a migraine headache, and it is with me up to today.

Some people have said that time is the best medicine and time can heal everything. But this is not the case for me: as time goes on, the suffering is getting worse and worse and memory is getting clearer and clearer.

Thank God I became a Christian; God did help me and healed me. The Bible teaches us that as long as we confess our sin, we will be forgiven. Frequently I come to the Lord, asking for forgiveness. I know God has already forgiven my sin, but very often I could not forgive myself. I do believe that I will meet my baby again in heaven. If God allows, I will ask the forgiveness from my baby when I see him/her in heaven.

As a Chinese saying says, whenever you have broken your tooth, you swallow it by yourself. I never shared this experience with anyone before, because the scars in my heart are one million times more painful than the scars on my body!

While I was writing this short testimony, several times I cried out and I could not continue writing. I knew that there are millions of Chinese sisters are suffering and will suffer the same thing that I suffered.

Who could help them? Who could save them? The one-child policy and forced abortion policy have killed millions of innocent lives in China. How could this inhuman crime be stopped? When could this inhuman crime be stopped?

May God forgive me, that on that day I will meet my baby in heaven!