Chinese attitudes towards abortion: 1930-1950

[sharikins]

Setting: Kaoshiung, Taiwan
Time: 1935-1953, 1968
Googled terms: "history Chinese abortion," "history attitudes Chinese abortion," "Chinese attitudes abortion"
Read: Behind the Silence: Chinese Voices on Abortion (book), various websites about the one-child policy

Comments

[satyrblade]

Well, it deals with Japan, not China, and takes place a few decades earlier. That said, the short film Imprint by Takashi Miihe (an unaired segment of the cable TV series Masters of Horror, now available on DVD) deals with the social, spiritual and practical elements of abortion among pre-industrial Far East Buddhist/ Shinto(*) peasants. CAUTION: It is perhaps the most disturbing film I've ever seen, for all kinds of reasons. That said, it's a minor masterpiece of unnerving surrealism rooted in ugly social realities.

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* - In the story, specifically Buddhist.

[gehayi]

And here's the summary of it on Wikipedia:

Imprint.

I don't think I'd have the nerve to watch it, frankly.

[sharikins]

Thank you for the reference, both of you.

[jedifreac]

I'd say that the differences between Taiwan and in China might actually be quite distinct given that Taiwan never had the one child policy or communist obligations to the state. So be careful not to get that confused. If anything, given the history of Taiwan (ESPECIALLY in that time period, the 1930s) the attitudes towards abortion (esp. her parents' attitudes) would more closely reflect those of the Japanese occupiers! Also, given your character will have lived in the US for several years before needing this abortion, why wouldn't she have assimilated American values about abortion by this time?

This paper from 1991 talks a bit about Taiwanese attitudes towards abortion in the late 80s.
In Taiwan, where Chinese Buddhism is currently in a very strong resurgence,abortion is condemned in Buddhist theory...However, in traditional Buddhist thought abortion was less culpable than other forms of taking human life. The law in Taiwan is very restrictive, with induced abortion being illegal for any reason and with strong penalties both for

[sharikins]

Thank you so much for your long reply -- this is exactly the kind of information I'm looking for -- and point taken about the Japanese occupation.

Also, given your character will have lived in the US for several years before needing this abortion, why wouldn't she have assimilated American values about abortion by this time?

This particular section of my work chiefly deals with the degree to which an immigrant will assimilate not only language, culture, etc. but also "ethical" ideas, so whether my character also adopts American values regarding abortion (which were by no means homogenous in the 60s!) is of particular interest to me.

Again, thank you for your input.

[imayb1]

I did a search for "abortion" at Buddhanet.net and came up with several article and .pdf links discussing abortion as relates to Buddhism. You may find some useful things to use, there.

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=abortion&domains=www.buddhanet.net&sitesearch=www.buddhanet.net

[triad_serpent]

I spent last year living in Taipei, and I can't remember the topic ever coming up among Taiwanese friends. However, considering a feminist discussion group I attended once while there, I think even now that the attitude towards abortion would be fairly conservative. There is a pronouced need to "save face" in many Asian cultures (Japanese in particular; a kid in Japan at the same time had several hundred dollars stolen by the child of the family he was staying with, and rather than even tell the parents, the exchange group he was affiliated with quietly replaced the money), so I suppose the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy would be the deciding factor. ^^