One-child policy, abortion and discourse

In his work History of sexuality, Foucault indicates a bio-politics of the population as interventions and regulatory controls. The disciplines of the body and the regulations of the population constituted the two poles around which the organization of power over life was deployed. He describes bio-power as the numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations. This is how sovereignty exercise their power with population as a governmentality. In 1979, China launched one-child policy which is called family planning policy in China. With a population of about 1 billion in 1980, the policy is considered by China as an effective way to control the population to achieve a sustainable economic development. This strict program of population restricting one child from a couple or they have to pay the “social child-raising fee” or called “family planning fine” but with exception in certain rural area and ethnic minorities. The state had the right to decide who was allowed to have a child and who was not allowed to have more than one child. One-child policy becomes a bio-power tool. The policy as a particular type of biopolitics is thus discussed in the western world. Focusing on these discussions can lead to a more objective view of the policy and reexamining some of my views which is politically constructed when I was educated in China. Along with the restriction on birth, the forced abortion by local authorities and sex-selective abortion came into picture. As Mbembe’s Necropolitics argues, necropolitics is a right to kill, to allow to live to, expose to death and other forms of political violence. Although there is no law permits the forced abortion by any administrative organization, it still happens when the policy is executed locally. Forced abortion can be considered as political violence subjected to the pregnant woman and the fetus outside the normal state of law and bureaucracy management. The policy is also challenged for violating the reproductive right, which government gives its own interpretation to defend not violating the right. Besides forced abortion, autonomous abortion is also intervened and controlled by the state. To legitimate abortion, the discourse is created which rationalize it and remove moral criticism from abortion and the debate about whether fetus should count as life is given an assertive answer. When the sex-selective abortion came into problem, the government implement the ban on fetal sex diagnosis, which did not eradicate the problem but female infanticide and abandonment still exist. As the state attempted to control population with bio-power, concomitant consequence shows the limit of the power. One-child policy becomes more than a governmentality on population but also an arena of biopolitics and necropolitics. In 2015, one-child policy is abolished and substituted by two-child policy with the state -promoting as a “full opening”. However, a simple change on number does not change the nature of the policy and it still remains previous problem unsolved. What the government facing now is that one-child policy has been incorporated in the legitimacy in the process of the employment of biopolitics, how can they carry out the new policy effectively and without admitting the past was wrong? When the discourses and norms are established through political enforcement, social intervention and propaganda, how can they rewrite them when remaining in the frame of biopolitics? When the previous biopolitics is too powerful, how to break it and accommodate the new policy?