Customer Reviews

Mother's Ordeal: One Woman's Fight Against China's One-Child Policy

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"One Mother's Ordeal" is the story of China's "one family, one child" policy and raises a lot of questions about the meaning of pregnancy, parenthood, and reproductive rights. "A Mother's Ordeal" is about a system of family planning that has nothing to do with "choice," and a woman who was not only forced to abide by the "one family, one child" policy but was forced to implement it as well. The incredible stories of abortions at all stages of pregnancy and women bound and gagged, dragged screaming and crying, to clinics where their children, their hearts and souls, are torn from them sheds a whole new light on the issue. The chapter about "The Boy Who Would Not Die" is a turning point for Chi An, and for good reason. In China, housing, food, clothing, education are guaranteed for all, as long as government policy is followed. And freedom of speech? The right to question authority? Citizens are watched and listened to every minute...solicited for their "opinions" and punished for having the wrong ones... Chi An Wei has seen the birth of her first child cause the abortion of a neighbor's, has had to live with a policy that has caused her a great deal of anguish. Now she must reconcile her own pain with the fact that implementing this policy is what she does for a living. It's a horrifying picture, and a warning to those who would for one minute become complacent about whatever it may mean to have "rights" over our own bodies. Have you ever had to do something you found morally repulsive in order to make a living? Chi An Wei's experience is a humbling one...and one I will never forget.

The story of Chi An's life, from her uncelebrated birth (after all, she was JUST a girl), to her early school days interrupted by the search for steel to feed Mao's plan to make a Great Leap Forward, to her simple meals of tree-leaf pancakes during the days of the Great Famine, to her heart-felt allegiance to and then disillusionment with the Cultural Revolution purge, to her enforcement of and then torture under the family-planning policies, provides a fascinating context in which to study the political heartbeat of a country little understood. This poignant account could cause you to hate China. It may make you weep with compassion, as I did. But finally, it will help you to understand. See China through Chinese eyes.

This book was indeed an eye opener for me. I am an adoptive parent in the process of adopting a little girl from China. I have heard and read about other researches as to what is happening inside China. But this is a story told "from the inside". It boggles my mind that a government would do such things to her own people. I was very appalled by the methodology engaged by the government. It makes me feel so lucky to be living here that we have the freedom to make our own choices. It makes me all the more anxious to finish my adoption process. I want my hands on my precious little one and away from such a government. I recommend this book to all those who seek to understand China's One-child policy better.

This is an excellent and very powerful book. The tale that unfolds is not only frightening but extremely enlightening. Before reading this book I solidly and proudly stood on the side of society that values all human life. Not only does Chi An's story deepen that conviction, but I now find that I value my right to choose life. I can't even begin to imagine the fear that the women in this story had to face and the desperate measures taken to try and save their unborn (and, sickeningly, in some cases, born) children. It also gives fascinating insight into life during the Cultural Revolution. This book was a real eye opener and a definite page-turner. I highly recommend it.

I bought this book in Hong Kong when it could not be found in the states. I was in the process of adopting from China and looking for everything I could get my hands on about China's population control, plight of Chinese mothers, etc. Mosher was banned from China for the cruelties he has exposed.

This is one of the best books I have ever read. I could not put it down. It gave me an understanding of communism from an individual's perspective. This in turn gave me even more appreciation for my country and my freedom. This book is so compelling and reads so easily. I was able to understand and trace the events in China's history that have led them to where they are today developmentally. I don't believe their problems are caused by overpopulation.

As the mother of a daughter adopted from China, it has given me a heart for the woman who gave birth to my daughter. I know how dangerous it was for her to hide this baby. It would have been easier for her to abort. She may have even received incentives had she done so. But she chose to give her baby a chance at life. How I wish she could know her baby is safe! Another great read on this subject is: Lost Daughters of China.

This book is a real sleeper, and will be overlooked because it is non-fiction. Indeed, it reads like a novel and should be on the required reading list for all women who have ever thought about having children or about not having them. With great opportunities for introspection, it made me, the mother of four healthy, accomplished, adult children, look back on my life, my choices, and the freedoms of our American lifestyle, and rejoice.

I've read "A Mother's Ordeal" twice now and it's one of the most compelling books I've ever read. I was born just weeks apart from Chi An, the main character in this true story, but our lives have been lived worlds apart.

As she vividly describes her childhood in Communist China, her poverty and famine and cruel government policies, I couldn't help but trace my own life events and be painfully aware of the blessings I've received in comparison to her life lived under vise-grip pressures of a government not concerned for its own people. As I read about her eating pancakes made of tree leaves and sleeping through school in the afternoons because of her weakness from hunger, I pictured myself going door-to-door to collect money in milk cartons for the "starving children in China" and now I've been introduced to the first-person story of one of those children.

This book helped me to put a very human face on the stories I've read in the newspaper and studied in history classes. I am a deeply pro-life woman, and yet I can fully empathize with women in China who are forced to submit to abortion because of the relentless, crushing pressure experienced on a daily basis by the women of that country by a government committed to a one-child policy at any cost, which is so graphically explained in this book. Reading it makes me ask myself how strong I could be under the same circumstances.

You will not be able to forget her descriptions of her C-section done without anesthesia because of her desire to avoid the dangers the anesthesia posed to her unborn son, and to admire her courage and the deep mother-love that drove her to do so. And even when she becomes a birth control worker who imprisons and berates and forcibly aborts other women (even her best friend, in labor at full term), you cannot see this woman as a monster herself, but as part of a monstrous system that must be exposed and changed.

This book may change your understanding of abortion forever and make you more committed than ever to ending its destructive power in a very pro-woman way. It will most surely challenge excuses for UNFPA funding of these policies in China. Thank you Chi An, for telling your story!

This book is a must-read. It has changed my life. After reading about the human rights abuses concerning fertility and reproduction that have taken place, I have come to realize that we take for granted our right to bear children. Please read this book, it is a real eye-opener.

This account of a woman in China, including the events of her life from her birth in 1948 to the time she became a permanent resident of a free country in the 1980s, is full of high interest for any one who wants to know what it is like to live in China in her time, and I presume today. It is indeed a chilling account of the way things are in a country which accords to abortion a higher position than life, and the accounts of the way abortions are performed I don't suppose would be what pro-abotionists would like to read about. But I found the book educational and eye-opening.

This book is truly an eye opener. It is well written and I found it hard to put it down. The story of Chi An, a chinese woman and her life, in particular how the 'one child' policy affected her, is fascinating. It made me realise how lucky we are in the Western World, and how much we take our freedom for granted.