SW News: The Chinese Government is now providing “tax and housing credits, educational benefits and even cash incentives to encourage women to have more children,” according to a report by The New York Times.

The report states that “villages offer cash bonuses to families with new babies.” In some provinces, married couples with young children are given “parenting breaks.” Other benefits favoring married mothers include expanded maternity leave. A full year of leave is even being considered by a northwestern province.

The benefits are only applicable in the case of married couples. Despite offering many attractive incentives, the nation’s birth rate continues to steadily decline, as rising costs are deterring couples from having more children.

To curb China’s demographic crisis caused by the ‘one-child policy’ introduced in the 1980s, women are being encouraged “to have more than one baby — and preferably three” in an effort to increase the population and expand the country’s shrinking labor force. For decades, the Communist regime in China had forcibly aborted and sterilized women as part of its strict policy. As the birth rate plummeted and the number of young people belonging to the workforce decreased, the controversial family planning initiative was replaced with a two-child policy in 2016. In May 2021, a new Population and Family Planning Law was passed which allows Chinese couples to have three children.

China’s harsh family planning laws discriminate against single women, minorities, and other groups. Babies of single parents have always struggled to receive any social benefits like medical insurance and education.

The international pro-life community hopes that China’s example will prevent other countries from implementing such draconian family planning schemes.