CHINA: China has abandoned plans to criminalise gender-based abortions, one year after the government said penalties were needed to correct a growing imbalance in the number of newborn boys and girls.
As more mothers decide to abort female fetuses, China's gender imbalance is worse than previously thought, with 119 boys born for every 100 girls.
This compares with a global average of 105 boys to 100 girls.
This skewed ratio has worsened since China introduced the one-child policy 30 years ago to curb population growth, making abortion a widely used method for controlling family size.
The restriction has cemented traditional preferences for boys, particularly in the countryside, where farming families favour sons because they believe they are better able to provide for the family and support their elderly parents.
Last month, officials in the northern province of Hebei closed 201 clinics for telling women the sex of their babies. In some rural parts of Hebei, there were 134 boys born for every 100 girls.
Gender scanning of the foetus is illegal in China but the regulation does not spell out punishments and a large black market flourishes, with a scan typically priced at €5 if the child is a boy and €3 if it is a girl.
If it is a girl, they will often abort the foetus. Experts said formally criminalising the ban would more effectively deter parents from aborting baby girls.
The government is worried about the long-term effects of a rising male-to-female ratio on social stability, but lawmakers were unable to agree on the amendment to the criminal law, said Zhou Kunren, vice-chairman of a parliamentary law committee
While some felt the law was needed to correct the gender ratio, "other experts argue it is inappropriate to criminalise such practice because pregnant women enjoy the right to know the sex of the foetus", the China Daily reported.
The proposal would have meant up to three years in jail, probation and fines for those involved in gender identification of embryos for non-medical purposes.
However, opponents said the rising imbalance of the newborn sex ratio was a complicated issue which needed a combination of solutions, arguing that putting it into criminal law would merely drive potential offenders underground.
Even though it says it is keen to crack down on the sex imbalance, the government has come down hard on activists who try to expose coercive family planning measures.
Among them is Chen Guangcheng, a legal expert in the coastal province of Shandong, known as the "blind barefoot lawyer".
He exposed forced abortions and sterilisations and is currently facing what his lawyers say are trumped-up charges of "deliberately destroying public property and assembling a crowd to disrupt traffic".