Posted on 01/17/2007 6:27:16 PM PST by kiriath_jearim
An invasion of pregnant women from mainland China flooding into Hong Kong to give birth has forced the territory's authorities to take action to turn them back at the border.
Tens of thousands of women in the past three years have crossed into Hong Kong, checked into hospitals to give birth, and returned home again, often without paying their bills.
By doing so, they can evade China's one-child policy, and gain automatic residency rights for their child in Hong Kong.
But the numbers doing so now account for almost a third of Hong Kong births, and local women are complaining of arriving at hospital to find the wards already full.
Now the government has announced higher fees to deter the women, and extra security at border points. From next month, women judged by teams of doctors to be more than seven months pregnant will not be allowed in unless they have confirmation of an advance booking at a hospital. The measure will apply to all mainland pregnant women, but not to women from outside the territory, a decision that has been attacked as discriminatory.
Hong Kong hospital authority said the numbers were becoming too large to cope with. From a few hundred births to non-locals at the turn of the century, numbers rose to 19,500 in 2005 and more than 20,000 in the first 10 months of last year.
It's about time the Chinese banned pregnancies, period.
Let the 70+ crowd die out and then they can reinstate pregnancies.
This is bad. Parents who do not want to murder their unborn child, and already have a child, go to Hong Kong to escape the one child policy. Although it is a strain on Hong Kong's medical facilities, mainland Chinese should be able to come to get away from the one child policy (especially if they can't afford to pay the price if they do have another child against the policy).
They must have learned this trick from the Mexicans here who come to bring anchor babies and get free maternity benefits.
pro-life ping.
Except Mexicans come here like they own the US and act like coming here is a right and not a priviledge. Since when was mooching off the US a right?
For about the last 15 years.
For about the last 15 years.
Wait a minute! The libs are always telling us what excellent health care Communist countries provide. Why would thees women need to cross borders to have their children when all of their needs are met in their home country? ;)
Why, even Fidel Castro had his superior Cuban doctors perform life-saving surgeries on him...Um, Oh...Nevermind!
(He went to Spain for medical attention.)
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