Civil-Rights Advocate Asks Bush to Denounce China's Forced Abortions
by Chad Groening
September 18, 2006
(AgapePress) - - The head of a conservative civil liberties organization is urging President George W. Bush to condemn China's forced abortion policy, as well as to denounce the Chinese government's imprisonment of a human-rights activist who dared speak out against the inhumane policy.John Whitehead is president and founder of the Virginia-based Rutherford Institute, one of America's leading advocates of civil liberties and human rights. He says Communist China continues to use its so-called "Planned Birth" or one-child policy, as a way to control its population, but the government does not like anyone within the country exposing the appalling practices associated with that policy to the outside world.
"A blind civil-rights activist in China, Chen Guangcheng, vocally opposed China's inhumane practice of forced abortions and sterilizations," Whitehead notes. He says Chen voiced his views in an interview with Time magazine, and shortly after the article appeared, the activist was put under house arrest and subsequently sentenced.
That is why The Rutherford Institute spokesman wants President Bush to speak out. "We've found over the years [that] even tyrants don't like bad publicity," the human rights advocate says. "Soft-shoeing these kind of things and making timid entreaties by the State Department really don't work -- the Chinese really don't care."
While officials within the Bush administration have called upon the Chinese to release Chen, Whitehead says they have failed to communicate a sense of urgency in keeping with the severity of the situation. "If we really care about this," he asserts, "then it's time to do something a little stronger -- and the President has said he cares about the abortion issue."
Chen was sentenced by the Chinese government to a little over four years in prison, supposedly for damaging property, the head of The Rutherford Institute notes. "But those are just trumped-up charges," he asserts, leveled against a man who has "vocally opposed China's inhumane practice of forced abortions and sterilizations."
Whitehead has sent a letter to President Bush, urging him to condemn the Communist Chinese government's one-child policy and its imprisonment of Chen Guangcheng. The U.S. civil rights advocate believes a strong message of condemnation from the president will affect far more than any timid rhetoric from the State Department.
Chad Groening, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
