Women's Healthcare in China - Laws

Laws

Chinese healthcare policy has tried to assure Chinese women the same treatment as men. There was a strong traditional culture that the People’s Republic of China has been trying to modernize. In this traditional culture, women did not have any priority in healthcare. Chinese culture was based on Confucius thought, patrilineal kinship system, and ancestral worship. These three factors focus strongly on the male, favoring them (Hong, 545). Making the healthcare policies of the People’s Republic of China an important step towards women’s healthcare in China. A whole set of laws, administrative decrees and local regulations, based on the Constitution of the People's Republic of China and the PRC Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Women, such as the PRC Marriage Law, the PRC Inheritance Law, the PRC Labor Law, the PRC Law on Maternal and Child Care and Regulations on Labor Protection of Women Workers, that are aimed at protecting the rights and interests of women and promoting the development of women has basically come into being (China).

Recently China has made efforts to develop women’s issues. Backed by the UNDP, the All-China Women’s Federation has called for more rights in their Development of the Chinese Women (1995 – 2000) program. Their goals are to “mobilize and organize the women of all nationalities to plunge into the open-and-reform and socialist modernization efforts, comprehensively raise the quality of women, safeguard the rights and interests of women in accordance with the law and further improve the status of women.” The program later goes on to state that all areas of the government and society must work hard to understand and help implement these goals (China). This is important because women would be taking care of each other, and knowing the problems personally will allow for more emphasis on women’s issues.

The goals stated were to increase the amount of educated women, so that they will be able to work in government departments, therein giving females a voice. The People’s Republic of China, during the fifth session of the seventh national people’s congress in 1992, created laws to protect the rights and interests of women. In article 33, it is stated that women will enjoy the same rights as men. It also became illegal to murder female infants, discriminate against those who have female children, kidnap or traffic in women, and engage in prostitution. Earlier in 1956, the Chinese government made public the intentions of controlling the population size through education and publicity. Madame Le The-chuan, the minister of health at this time, made these intentions known. A few months later, Zhou Enlai approved the population control intentions and began the first of the many campaigns for smaller families. Contraceptives and family planning were widely advertised. Workers started in urban areas, then worked their way to the more rural parts promoting these practices. The government was successful in recreating the family image to a mother, father, and one child that the prominent view of a “perfect family” involves a mother, father, and child (Chen, 239).

With the uses of contraceptives, there was a large push for more research in producing more effective contraceptives. By the late 1960’s, a 22-day pill was created. This became very popular because of the low cost and near absence of side effects. Factory workers and rural laborers began receiving the combined oral contraceptive pills for free or for a very low cost (Chen, 245). Another alternative to using the birth control pill was a form of induced abortion. In 1989 it was reported that doctors are able to perform this for free of charge. The government and businesses fully supported this practice and offered two weeks off with full pay (Chen, 245).