What’s Wrong with the World

The men signed of the cross of Christ go gaily in the dark.

About

What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

PRI continues to help innocents in China

As Jupiter could be hidden from all-devouring Time, as the Christ Child could be hidden from Herod--so the child unborn is still hidden from the omniscient oppressor. He...alone is left; and they seek his life to take it away.

G.K. Chesterton, from Eugenics and Other Evils, as quoted in Alvaro da Silva, ed., Brave New Family

For Holy Innocents' Day, a story with a happy ending from the Population Research Institute. (The story is from PRI's Global Family Life News, not available on-line.) PRI has set up a Chinese safe house in the first instance to help women pursued by the population control police of China when they are pregnant with second or otherwise "unlicensed" children. This story makes no mention of the forces of the law, though pregnancy outside of wedlock is, according to other PRI publications, usually illegal in China as well. But in this case, the mother, whom they refer to as "Rachel," was chiefly under intense pressure from her own family to abort her child.

Rachel, a single Christian young woman, was supported in her pregnancy by a friend named Susan, whom she refers to as a "Protestant missionary." (I imagine Susan is not known by the Chinese government to be a missionary.) Susan came to face Rachel's furious family with her and got herself slapped around, along with Rachel, by Rachel's father. Time and again, Rachel's family bullied her into consenting to abortion. Repeatedly she prayed that God would perform a miracle to prevent the abortion. The first time, the hospital rescheduled, because they said they had no beds available. The second time, Rachel had an infection, so the abortion had to be delayed while she received antibiotics. When all seemed lost, and Rachel was in the hospital waiting for the abortion the next day, she received a phone call: Three friends were waiting for her by the hospital elevator to help her get away. Eventually her mother (who had threatened to commit suicide if she did not abort the child) fell asleep, and Rachel left her room, clad in nothing but hospital pajama pants and a sweater. Pretending to the other patients to take a walk around the halls, she met her friends at the elevator and fled. Her baby girl was born at the end of June at PRI's safe house in Shanghai.

Comments (2)

Wonderful story, and great (as in courageous) work the PRI is doing. Do you happen to know why the family's insistence upon the abortion? Fear of the authorities, e.g.?

My impression from the story was it was more a matter of ruining her career and bringing shame on the family. She was going to have to take time off of her job, she was the first member of her family to go to university, that sort of thing. In fact, I was pretty curious about the whole issue of the authorities. PRI has said repeatedly that you can't get a "license" for the birth of a child out of wedlock, but here legal sanctions weren't mentioned. That may have been because she was in a larger city; the rules are sometimes a bit different there. Or it may have been because she was telling the story more or less in her own words (translated, I assume), and it was her family's shame in her, etc., that made the biggest impression on her.

Post a comment


Bold Italic Underline Quote

Note: In order to limit duplicate comments, please submit a comment only once. A comment may take a few minutes to appear beneath the article.

Although this site does not actively hold comments for moderation, some comments are automatically held by the blog system. For best results, limit the number of links (including links in your signature line to your own website) to under 3 per comment as all comments with a large number of links will be automatically held. If your comment is held for any reason, please be patient and an author or administrator will approve it. Do not resubmit the same comment as subsequent submissions of the same comment will be held as well.