Onechildpolicy：tobeornottobe.doc

One Child Policy: to Be or Not to Be
During the decade between year 1990 and 2000, average growth rate is 1.07%, which is 0.4% lower than the level of 1980s. At this rate, the population will peak around year 2040 and drop gradually after that. Doubtlessly, we can draw a conclusion that China’s one child policy has achieved marvelous success in controlling the growth of population in the past quarter century. Since a negative growth is also not welcome, arguments arise that one child policy should be abolished or loosed to cope that in advance. In my opinion, the rigid one child policy should ultimately be replaced with a flexible one, but not now.

In the past quarter century, a consensus is propagated that the rigid one child policy should be treated as a basic national policy that’s unchangeable. Since it’s only a slogan for propaganda, its rationality should be reconsidered repeatedly. In fact, or at least theoretically, every policy should be made according to the conditions it faces. No policy can be effective permanently or ubiquitously. One child policy has brought serious problems such as the population aging, social security, labor supply. What’s more, the rigid but incomplete policy result in unbalanced gender ratio in the new birthed, since boys are far more cherished than girls in China. When a couple get a boy, they stop breeding; rather if they get a girl, they will try to abort it or move to other place to breed more slinkingly until they get a boy. Obviously, this kind of effective control tilts the proportion of boys in the population. In fact, now the ratio of new birthed boys to girls is as high as 119:100. These imply that a simple rigid one child policy is far from perfect, and should be replaced by a more flexible one to eliminate these defects.

But some people go too far in the opposite direction that one child policy should be abolished at once for the consideration of human rights. On the one hand, nobody will deny that human rights are very important. But one should never forget that human rights include a lot of affairs, such as survivorship and development of every person, equal opportunity in education etc. While these targets always contradict with each other and can hardly be achieved at the same time. Thus, population problem of China is very complex and difficult which should never be considered separately. On the other hand, since China’s population and its pressure to everybody’s development still ranks the largest in the world, we can not risk the fast increasing in the near future resulted by any loose policy.

An eclectic or hybrid opinion is that the rich or highly educated should be given the rights to bear more children since they are more capable to afford their children’s nurture and education. This argument will achieve none by losing both. Firstly, it’s self-evident that everyone is created equal. A policy of discrimination will disgust the majority of the population. What’s more, it’s the government’s liability rather than the parents to provide a basically qualified and equal opportunity to children. Secondly, the offspring of the rich or highly educated are not guaranteed to outperform others. Thirdly, the rich and highly educated population has a relatively small percentage and a narrower propensity in breeding.

You may ask what kind of policy should be proposed to replace the present one. Though not specific, I think the satisfactory alternatives to one child policy, should at least guarantee, 1) perfect controlling of the growth rate, 2) the criteria of human rights, 3) the equality, 4) the reversal of the unbalanced gender structure. Still more, perhaps this kind of measures will be taken just before the year the population peaks.

One Child Policy: To Be or Not To Be

Outline
Thesis statement: One child policy should ultimately be replaced with a flexible one, but not now.
Con idea 1: One child policy should be treated as a basic national policy that’s unchangeable.
Refutation: Every policy should be made according to the conditions it faces. No policy is effective permanently or ubiquitously. One child policy can bring serious problems such as the population aging, social security, labor supply etc.

Con idea 2: One child policy should be abolished for the consideration of human rights.
Refutation: Human rights include a lot of affairs, such as survivorship and development of every person, equal opportunity in education etc. But these targets always contradict with each other and can hardly be achieved at the same time.

Con idea 3: The rich or highly educated should be given the rights to bear more children since they are more capable to afford their children’s nurture and education.
Refutation: It’s self-evident that everyone is created equal. It’s the government’s liability rather than the parents to provide a basically qualified and equal opportunity to children. What’s more, the offspring of the rich or highly educated are not guaranteed to outperform others.\