‘Saving One Baby at a Time’: Organization Works in China to Prevent Couples from Aborting, Abandoning Baby Girls

ABOVE: CBN News's David Brody spoke with Women's Rights Without Frontiers founder Reggie Littlejohn about how her organization is saving babies in China. 

Even though China's population control, "one-child policy" is now a "three-child policy," a stubborn fact remains: many pregnant women are still forced to have abortions, especially if they are having a girl. 

A group called Women's Rights Without Frontiers is on the ground in China trying to prevent this, one baby at a time. 

"The families are still selectively aborting and abandoning baby girls because even under the three-child policy, there's some preference, people prefer baby boys," Reggie Littlejohn, founder, and president of the organization told CBN News. 

Littlejohn's group is exposing the forced abortion and gendercide taking place inside China. 

"If they have two daughters first and they're coming up for a third child, some families will just abort baby girls until they finally get a baby boy for that third child...we are the only organization in the world that is on the ground inside of China helping mothers of baby girls keep their daughters," she said. 

Some of the babies saved by Women's Rights Without Frontiers. (Photo credit: Women's Rights Without Frontiers)

So how is the organization helping families exactly? Littlejohn explains the process.

"We've saved about 300 baby girls and the way we do it is we have field workers that come to the door and say, I understand that you're pregnant with a baby girl, or you just gave birth to a baby girl and that your mother-in-law is trying to get you to abandon her, like give her away somewhere else. And what we want to say is girls are as good as boys and we will give you a monthly stipend of $25 a month to empower you to argue back against your husband and your mother-in-law, that you should be able to keep your daughter and these women are very, very grateful," she explained. 

"The $25 a month, that's a lot of money in the Chinese countryside and it enables them to go back to their husbands, go back to their mothers-in-law and say, 'Look, I can't abandon this baby girl, look, she's a lucky girl, she's already bringing money into the family,'" Littlejohn added. 

Publicly, China has been saying that they want to establish a policy system to boost birth rates. They say it's a response to a country that is facing an aging population crisis. Reuters News Agency reports that China's birth rate is set to fall to a record low, dropping below 10 million newborn babies.  

Still, the reality on the ground is much different than what the Chinese government is saying. Women's Rights Without Frontiers says despite China's public stance, the issue of forced abortions is still a major problem. 

"The thing that people don't understand is that all of the brutality of the one-child policy is still legal under the three-child policy," Littlejohn said. "So the new rule is every married couple is allowed to have three children, which makes it still legal for them to forcibly abort unmarried women and also fourth children and they are still carrying on forced abortions among the Uyghurs and the Tibetans."

Two more babies saved by Women's Rights Without Frontiers. (Photo credit: Women's Rights Without Frontiers)

You might think an issue like forced and selective abortions in a communist country would be an issue the left and right could both agree on politically but sadly, that has not been the case. 

"I established Women's Rights Without Frontiers with the hope that left and right people who are pro-abortion and pro-life would come together to oppose forced abortion because it's not a choice and I've been very disappointed," Littlejohn told CBN News. "Basically, the people who support so-called abortion rights, really have not said anything and really have not helped at all with this effort. It's all the pro-life community that has come behind me to try to stop these atrocities in China." 

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