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Some Observations on Current Fertility Control in China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Carl Djerassi
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Extract

It is remarkable how little is known about current contraceptive practice, family planning, and population growth in the People's Republic of China. Since so little is published by the Chinese themselves - virtually nothing since the mid 1960s - nearly all western literature on these topics comes from professional “China-watchers” (primarily social scientists) and from occasional first hand reports of travellers. This latter group has not included experts in contraception and family planning nor, with one notable exception, have physicians who have recently written on medicine in China addressed themselves to the topic of fertility control, so that, until now, hardly anybody seems to have bothered about “contraceptive hardware” especially of the sophisticated type such as steroid oral contraceptives. Yet this is precisely the area where one could gain a real insight into Chinese chemical and clinical competence. Indeed, if production figures of such contraceptives could be ascertained, this would be the first hard numerical evidence about the extent of contraceptive practice in the People's Republic. I am convinced that, at this stage, it is impossible to write a definitive treatise on contraceptive practice in China. The country is too large, national statistics are unavailable, many areas are not yet open to foreigners and the extent of contraceptive usage - qualitative and quantitative - is still very uneven. The current need is for individual reports by professionally qualified observers citing data which, as far as possible, are backed up by hard facts. Once a sufficient number of such studies has appeared, then the time might be ripe for someone, ideally a Chinese author, to discuss the topic authoritatively from a national perspective.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 57 , March 1974 , pp. 40 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1974

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References

* Many people in China were of enormous help in enabling me to write this article. Their extraordinary hospitality can hardly be acknowledged and, by naming only a few, I run the unintentioned risk of slighting many others. Nevertheless, I must thank in print Professor Chen Shih-hsiang (Director of the Institute of Zoology, Peking) who invited us to China and was our gracious host in Peking; my former collaborator, Dr Huang Liang (Institute of Materia Medica, Peking) who not only presented a bird's eye view of chemical research progress in Peking but also served as interpreter at lectures and discussion sessions; Dr Tao Cheng-ngo (Institute of Organic Chemistry, Shanghai) who organized an exceedingly effective presentation of current chemical research in Shanghai and Dr Liu Chu-chin of the same institute who served as indefatigable guide and lecture interpreter in Shanghai. My wife, Norma, as well as Professors Ezra Vogel (Harvard University) and Y'i-tsi Feuerwerker (University of Michigan) kindly acted as surrogates for me on occasions when I could not be in two places at the same time. My associates, Dr Mo Yoke and Miss Tan Wai-lee were responsible for the translation of all Chinese materials. A more extensive version of this article, including many technical details not included here, will be published as “Fertility limitation through contraceptive steroids in the People's Republic of China,” Studies in Family Planning (forthcoming).

1. Orleans, L. A., “China - population in the People's Republic,” Population Bulletin 27 (1971)Google Scholar;Orleans, , “Population dynamics,” Medicine and Public Health in the People's Republic of China, Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare Pubcn. No. (NIH) 72–67 (Washington D.C., 1972), pp. 191–209Google Scholar;Orleans, , Every Fifth Child – the Population of China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972)Google Scholar; and references cited therein;Orleans, , “Evidence from Chinese medical journals on current population policy,” The China Quarterly, No. 40 (1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Orleans, , “Family Planning developments in China, 1960–1966: Abstracts from Medical Journals,” Studies in Family Planning 4 No. 8, pp. 197–215Google Scholar.Aird, J. S., “Population policy and demographic prospects in the People's Republic of China,” People's Republic of China: An Economic Assessment, Congress of the U.S., 18 05 1972, pp. 220–331Google Scholar and references cited therein.

2. SeeSidel, V. W., “The barefoot doctors of the People's Republic of China,” New Eng. J. Med. 286 (1972), pp. 1292–1300CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed and references cited therein. The exception isFaundes, A. and Luukkainen, T., “Health and family planning services in the Chinese People's Republic,” Studies in Family Planning 3 No. 7 Supplement (1972), pp. 165–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar;

3. Sidel, “Barefoot doctors.”

4. See above, n. 1.

5. Faundes and Luukkainen, “Health and family planning services in the People's Republic of China,” andTien, H. Y. “Marital moratorium and fertility control in China,” Population Studies 24 (1970), pp. 311–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; For additional details and extensive coverage of birth control policy and practice for the period 1949 to the end of the Cultural Revolution, see Aird, “Population policy.”.

6. Djerassi, “Fertility limitation.”

7. Djerassi, C., “Steroid oral contraceptives,” Science 151 (1966), pp. 1055–1061CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed and references cited therein.

8. Djerassi, “Fertility control.”

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. See the works cited in n. 1.

12. See Faundes and Luukkainen, “Health and family planning.”

13. “Family planning in Red China,” Journal of the American Medical Association 216 (1971), p. 1044Google Scholar;

14. See Faundes and Luukkainen, “Health and family planning”;White, G. F., “Notes on family planning in the People's Republic of China,” Unpubl. manuscript (University of Colorado), 27 05 1972Google Scholar; See alsoExperiment without Precedent (Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee, 1972), pp. 31–32Google Scholar; andKatagiri, T., “A report on the family planning programme in the People's Republic of China,” Studies in Family Planning 4 No. 8 (1973), pp. 216–18CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed;

15. See White, “Notes on family planning.”

16. Katagiri, “Report on family planning.” For technical description of abortion, see Faundes and Luukkainen, “Health and family planning.”

17. For technical description see Faundes and Luukkainen, “Health and family planning.”

18. See above, n. 1.

19. See above, n. 1; alsoField, R. M., “A note on the population of communist China,” CQ, No. 38 (1969), pp. 158–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar;

20. Djerassi, “Fertility limitation.”

21. “Prognosis for the development of new chemical birth control agents,” Science 166 (1969), pp. 468–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar;“Birth control after 1984,” Science 169 (1970), pp. 941–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and“Fertility control through abortion. An assessment of the period 1950–1980,” Science & Public Affairs (Bui. Atomic Scientists) (01 1972), pp. 9–45Google Scholar;

22. See Djerassi, “Birth control after 1984.”

23. See above, n. 1, and Field, “Note on the population of communist China.”

24. See the articles cited in n. 23.

25. United Nations Population and Vital Statistics Report, Statistical Papers Series A, 25 No. 1, 1 01 1973Google Scholar;

26. Ibid.

27. See Tien, “Marital moratorium.”

28. SeeAird, , “Population policy,” pp. 312–14Google Scholar and comments byLung, Chi (member of China's United Nations delegation) quoted in Peking Review, No. 17, pp. 16–17, 1973Google Scholar;Chen, P., “China's population programme at the grass roots level,” Studies in Family Planning 4 No. 8 (1973), pp. 219–27CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed;

29. Orleans, L. A., “China's statistics—the system and its problems,” Public Data Use 1 (2) (1973), pp. 17–23Google Scholar;