336 million abortions under China's one-child policy
March 16, 2013  03:44
More than half a billion birth control procedures, including at least 336 million abortions, have been performed in the name of the one-child policy, China's Health ministry has revealed.

The figure illustrates the enormous impact that the one-child policy has had on China in the four decades since it began.

Official statistics showed that in addition to the terminations, Chinese doctors have sterilised 196 million men and women since 1971.

Perhaps unexpectedly, most people in China support the one-child policy, believing that the country would have suffered an impossible drain on food and resources without it, according to a 2008 survey by the Pew Research Centre, which found more than three in four Chinese were in favour.

Fewer than ten per cent of sexually active couples regularly use condoms, according to the state-run Science and Technology Research Institute. 
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