Most days, it's pretty easy to take for granted the simple freedoms and privileges we're allowed in this country that you and I call home. In the spirit of gratitude, let's take a moment to walk down the road of a much darker reality, outside the safety of our generous motherland. To make this more comfortable for you, I'll put on the proverbial shoes of the one taking this journey.
In this foreign place, my government is intimately involved in the details of my life. The laws and standards of social propreity and loyalty to my country are the parameters in which I must exist to live here. It's deemed improper to discuss the particulars of relationships with the opposite sex, so I float through life blissfully ignorant until I find myself unexpectedly pregnant. Uh-oh. What are my options now? Well, I'm young, still only a college student. According to government regulations, a couple must have a combined age of at least 48 to legally marry. Even if we wanted to, my boyfriend and I miss that standard by a long shot. And, even if we were married, every expectant mother must recieve a "birth permit" to have her child legally. Birth permits are not granted to any woman under the age of 25, in addition to the fact that they're not granted to single women at all. I realize that even if I chose to have my baby illegally, single parenthood is so shameful that it isn't even recognized as a possible option by my village or my family. My country makes a clear perscription for cases like mine: abortion. This is the mandatory and only legal course of action.
I wish I could say that this scenario is the synopsis of a new sci-fi thriller, in the same vein as Orwell's 1984. The details and particulars outlined by this government certainly seem so specific and far-reaching, that it's easy to assume such a place could only exist in a fictional novel. But, unfortunately, this is a story borrowed from a different kind of book, the true auto-biography of a woman named Chai Ling who lived this story in China during the 1980's. By the time Ling was in her twenties, she had undergone multiple "required" abortions as she pursued her studies at one of China's leading universities. Ling went on to become student leader at the infamous Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, where peaceful student protestors were over-run by government tanks. Targeted by the Chinese Government as one of the top "21 Most Wanted" student leaders from the event, Ling went into hiding for months before escaping with her life to the U.S.
Maybe you're aware that faith in God and religious practices are not legal options in Communist China. Maybe you've also become aware in the past year of the growing concern over "gender-cide", and the reality that hundreds of thousands of Chinese families have aborted their little girls in hopes of conceiving a son under China's "one-child" policy. Have we, however, taken a moment to think of the countless women moving through life like the walking dead, seeking survival in the wake of forced, mandatory abortions? This is not merely an issue of pro-life versus pro-choice, this is the brutal intervention of a government that is not only killing off its future, but slaughtering the souls that comprise its present. This is a reality that's worthy of our consideration as we pray and yearn for the deliverance of our Chinese brothers and sisters.
I met Chai Ling in person about a month ago. Now an American mom and wife, as well as a Harvard Business School Graduate, and a follower of Jesus Christ, Chai Ling works to save the little girls of China through her organization All Girls Allowed. I spoke with Chai for a few minutes at a banquet we both attended, and told her how excited I was to get a copy of her new book, A Heart for Freedom. Chai looked at one of her interns, "Why don't we just...? Hand me that, will you?" She grabbed a book from her table and placed it in my hands even as I stammered, "I can't accept this, let me pay you..." She smiled, "No way, just pass it along to someone else when you're done."
Here's to passing it along.
