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Why Are Abortion Advertisements Rampant in the Streets of China?
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Why Are Abortion Advertisements Rampant in the Streets of China?

Tang Zhiting
Wellestudio163, 2018
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8

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  • Analytical
  • Eye Opening
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Recommendation

In China, you’ll see abortion advertisements plastered all over the towns and cities. This is all the more perplexing, since sex is generally a hush-hush topic in China. In 2017, for example, parents were outraged when teachers used a sex education picture book to explain body parts to children in elementary schools. But then, people walk past abortion advertisements shrugging their shoulders. Where did these advertisements come from? How did abortion become the exception from Chinese conservative attitudes toward sex?  Tang Zhiting, a writer for NetEase’s WeChat wemedia account Wellestudio163, looks to China’s modern history and culture to explain why abortions are more heavily advertised than condoms. getAbstract recommends this article to health care professionals, sociologists and educators – as well as men and women in China of reproductive age. 

Take-Aways

  • You would see advertisements for abortion services all over China, while condom ads were quite rare until very recently. 
  • Increasing pressure from the government after the 1950s to limit births, false state propaganda that portrayed abortions as safe and painless, and – later – the strict implementation of the one-child policy made many women adopt abortions as a primary means of birth control. 
  • The Chinese have a cultural preference for boys, so under the one-child policy, many families would opt for an abortion once the ultrasound showed the fetus was female. 

About the Author

Tang Zhiting is a writer for the WeChat wemedia account Wellestudio163, a product of the tech company NetEase. 

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