Heartbroken

I didn't know my heart could break for people I have never met. This past week I have been reading a book by one of the leaders of the Tianenmen Square movement that preceded the Tianenman Massacre in June of 1989. I was two when this happened and I honestly don't remember it at all.

   What I do remember is standing in that square in June of last year, staring in awe at the massive monument to Chairman Mao, the beautiful statue to the people, the expansive space filled with hundreds of gawking Chinese tourists who had likely spent their life's savings to come to the famed capital city.

    I remember knowing somewhere in the back of my head that something absolutely terrible had happened in that place. You know there is a spiritual dimension to the physical. I think that a space can have a spiritual feeling and the feeling in that square was somewhat oppressive.

    While one of my friends there was a history major, we all knew that one could not speak of the Massacre in public. In fact, it was best not to speak of it at all. To do so would be to jeopardize our status in China and the status of those who brought us.

     Now, as I read Chai Ling's "A Heart For Freedom," my heart breaks for the pain, the oppression, the anguish that I conveniently ignored.

   And while I am saddened to hear the details of the Massacre and how easily it could have been prevented, I am devastated because I know that the policies, culture and hierarchy that caused the massacre are still in existence. My heart breaks because there is still oppression but it exists below the surface, known but not acknowledged by the common people.

    Because while hundreds and perhaps thousands died on one day in June, every 2.5 seconds a baby is aborted in China. Every day a massacre happens under the guise of three politically correct words: One Child Policy.
 
     I know students whose parents had abortions because they simply couldn't afford the outrageous fines given them by the government if they were to keep the child. I know students who grew up feeling worthless and unloved because they weren't born with a penis.

    I know students whose parent are still paying the consequences for keeping their second and third child. In China, not only do the parents incur fines, but they are refused the allowance given for raising a child. One-child homes recieve a stipend to help cover the (outrageous) costs of education, food, clothing needed to raise their little emperor or empress.

     I know girls who are still slaving away in college so that they can prove their worth to parents who wish they had been boys.

     The devastating truth is this: the one child policy has become so interwoven in chinese culture and so normalized in the Chinese mind that many women do not realize they are being forced to have an abortion. As Chai Ling says, the power of shame, family and government pressure is enough to force a women to give up the life of her child.

    In China, couples must have a birth permit to have a baby. This birth permit can not be attained by a single woman. Instead, when a young college student finds that they are pregnant (and birth control is not taught in China, so pregnancy is hardly avoided) they must get an abortion. There is no option.

If they keep the baby they lose their chances of graduating and consign themselves to the life of a low-class laborer. This means they lose all chances for a good job with which they can bare the unweildy burden of supporting both parents in their old age, and they consign themselves to a life of shame and poverty. Not only this, but the child they bear will have little chance of succeeding in the world. They will be poor, possibly denied an ID card and thus not allowed to attend school, ride trains, be treated at the public hospital or participate in society as a whole.

   My heart aches for the faces that I carry around in my heart. I see these beautiful faces of the women in my class and haunted eyes peer back at me in my mind. You see, only 14% of women in China will NOT have an abortion. 40% will have two or more. That means that nearly all of my precious girls will experience this pain. Worse, they will be forced to bear the burden alone and silent. You see, these things aren't really talked about AT ALL.

     It is a huge loss of honor to admit you had an abortion. In a culture where honor is everything, silence reigns and women are forced to deal with the pain following abortion. Their culture tells them this is normal, that this is the right thing to do if they are good citizens, that this is what they must do if they love their families. No one talks about the baby or the pain the mother will experience.

    No one talks about the 500 women who die of suicide daily in China. (?)
So here I am and I am not quite sure how to proceed. I honestly want to board a plane and go hug all those precious students and whisper into their ears this truth: Jesus Loves them and He alone can heal their hearts and set them free. This is the heart cry of Chai Ling, who came to faith after moving to America. The cry is not simply, "God will forgive," but "God Loves and Heals."

      It is his kindness and mercy that draws us in, not his justice. His justice was satisfied on a cross where my sins were nailed right along with the government officials who ordered the massacre and the women who still bear the grief of unborn life.