Ban on aborting embryos after three months protects right to life

This file photo shows a woman walking past a billboard with an advertisement against illegal prenatal gender tests. [Photo/IC]

THE STANDING Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, discussed a draft of the general provisions of Civil Code on Monday, which includes articles protecting the rights of embryos. A comment on Beijing News calls for further legislation to prohibit abortion of embryos of 3 months or older:

It is good that the top legislature has been protecting the rights of embryos. However, the right to life of embryos, which is the basis to all other rights, is not under protection yet and that's something that needs to be improved.

Many countries prohibit abortions after an embryo is 3 months old. However, there is no such restriction here, as a result of which many abortions are done when an embryo is older than 3 months, which has occasionally been at the cost of pregnant women's lives.

A main cause of the absence of such a ban is the objection of family planning committees, which require the abortion of embryos that are "not within the family planning policy".

In some cities, local officials have even hung slogans such as "Abort with medicine or surgery; never let them be born", which is anti-human.

If the law makes it clear that embryos have the right to life, these family planning officials might face problems, but the law should be drafted in the interests of all.

Some people oppose the legislation, claiming that pregnant women should have the right to opt for an abortion. That depends on whether embryos are considered independent human beings after three months. If they are, the pregnant women have no right to abort them because such a deed is tantamount to murder.

Some medical experts propose to set three months as the standard, because a 3-month-old embryo has some characteristics of a human being. Besides, a woman should be able to decide within three months whether to have an abortion or not.