B4-0341, 0405 and 0417/94

Resolution on eugenics in China

The European Parliament,

A.whereas, on 27 October 1994, the Parliament of the People's Republic of China enacted a law euphemistically named the 'Health Care Law for Mother and Baby' whose aim is to 'improve the quality of the population' by reducing the birthrate of physically and mentally handicapped persons,

B.stressing that the bill contains an aberrant proposal to prohibit marriages where one or both partners is suffering or has suffered from mental or physical problems or infectious diseases,

C.noting, however, that the same law has the merit of prohibiting measures to determine the sex of unborn children, save on medical grounds, in an effort to reduce the number of abortions of female foetuses,

D.whereas Europe's own history with state-sponsored eugenics programmes leaves no doubt that this is a dangerous violation of fundamental human rights and the dignity of the individual,

1.Condemns the Chinese authorities' attempt to control the private life of handicapped persons, which is clearly discriminatory and designed to isolate an already disadvantaged category of individuals;

2.Calls on the representative of the European Union to protest against this policy and raise it as an issue at the forthcoming World Women's Conference in Peking;

3.Urges the Commission and the Council to inform the Chinese Government of the concern which this law is causing in the European Union and its Member States;

4.Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council, the Government of China, the President of the National Congress of the People of China and the representative of the European Union at the forthcoming World Women's Conference in Peking.