Behind China\'s High Abortion Rate

China, long a world leader in economic growth, has also long led in a category that fewer people want to talk about: abortion.

More than 13 million abortions are performed annually here, according to a recent survey by the Research Institute of the National Population and Family Planning Commission - about 25 a minute. (Compare that to about 6.5 million abortions in India, according to The Times of India, or about 1.2 million in the United States, according to the Guttmacher Institute.)

Why so many?

For a long time, it was largely ascribed to China's one-child policy, with women coerced into aborting “out of plan” children by the threat of heavy fines or the loss of a job - or, in some cases, physically forced to abort, often late in the pregnancy. That's still common, said Liu Yi, a rights activist in Chengdu, one of a growing number of ordinary Chinese who are monitoring the situation and speaking out about it.

“China's now the world's se cond-biggest economy and many things have advanced, but people's rights are still being damaged a lot,” Mr. Liu said by telephone.

Yet scholars are now pointing to a new factor - under-25 women who, if they are unmarried, do not directly fall within the remit of the family planners. About six million abortions per year are occurring among this group, according to a survey by the research institute, cited in a report this month by a state-run radio station that was picked up widely by domestic media, including the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People's Daily.

This highlights another major issue: young Chinese are increasingly seizing on fast-growing personal freedoms, sexual freedoms included. But parents and society more broadly, including schools, remain reluctant to talk about sex. This exposes young people to risk, said Guo Weihe, head of the Social Work and Social Policy Research Unit of the China University of Political Science and Law.

“It refl ects great unevenness amid the social change,” Mr. Guo said by telephone. “People have changed, but our system and our culture has not.”

One result is that young people simply don't know how to use contraceptives, said Wu Shangchun of the family planning commission research institute.

“University students have become a high-occurrence group,” a China National Radio report said in reference to abortions, citing a survey by Ms. Wu's institute. The story was picked up widely by domestic media, including the Communist Party-run people.com.cn (in Chinese).

“Many girls born after 1990 are not mature and are ignorant of the damage that can be caused by abortions,” the radio station's report said. Just 12 percent of young people rated their knowledge of contraception as “very good,” it said.

“Many young people encounter obstacles when it comes to getting information. For example they are shy about discussing it, or they worry they will b e discovered by their parents, teachers or friends,” the report said.

Yet gradually, people are beginning to talk more openly about what had long often been discussed only in absolute privacy.

Some novelists are leading the way. In 2009, Mo Yan, the new Nobel Literature laureate, published “Frog,” based on the experiences of his aunt, an obstetrician who provided abortions under the state's strict family planning policies that began in 1979.

And Sheng Keyi, who in her novel “Northern Girls” wrote about the lives of Chinese migrant women seeking jobs in cities like Shenzhen in the south, addressed the issue last year at a book fair in Beijing.

“About 70 or 80 percent of migrant worker girls in Shenzhen have probably had abortions,” she said. “I remember hearing that working in a gynecological hospital in Shenzhen was one of the best ways to make an income, because there was such a regular supply of abortions to be done. Millions and m illions. It is very common.”