Rural residents are allowed to have a second child if their first is a girl or handicapped, while urban Chinese are limited to one child per family. Some couples are so desperate to fulfill a traditional desire for boys that they abandon their daughter so that they can try again for a son. There is fairly widespread kidnaping and sale of children, a phenomenon that involves girls sold as brides to poor men in remote regions who have difficulties finding wives as well as boys sold to couples as sons. The national adoption law now needs to be applied to prevent parents from giving a girl up for adoption and trying again for a son. The policy demonstrates the disastrous effects of government trying to regulate family issues.
China personifies the disrespect for life and wanton use of power to effect radical social change.
China's policy also shows the serious gender imbalance when government tries to regulate family policy. It is a very serious situation that has no easy solution for the country. Wanton disrespect for life begins at how a civilization treats its children. As I am writing this, Yeltsin has just fired his entire Cabinet. In Russia's perspective, they gave up their empire, cut up their missiles and ceded three of their clients to NATO .