Reaction Paper on

The Dying Room

Submitted by:

Julaiza Montegrande
The introduction of the one-child policy in China 15 years ago has been a
disaster for girls. Couples desperate to have a son to support them in old age
according to Chinese custom daughters go to live with their husband's
families upon marriage have gone to extreme lengths to ensure that their
only legally permitted child be the right sex. Female fetuses are selectively
aborted, while newborn baby girls fall victim to infanticide. Those infant girls,
who are merely abandoned, rather than killed in utero or after birth, must be
considered fortunate. The rigid application of the one-child policy even leads
parents to cast aside older daughters upon the arrival of a son, and to
abandon the earlier-born handicapped child for a later-born healthy one.

Kind-hearted people, it read, we are abandoning our child not because we

cannot care for her, but because of the official one-child policy. Dear
daughter, we do not have bad hearts. We couldn't keep you. Friendly people
who take her up, we cannot repay the debt in this life. But perhaps in the
next life.

Of the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of girls abandoned each year,

many die of exposure. Others are taken home by 'friendly people' who are
willing to risk the wrath of the population control officials. Even so, China's
orphanages are filled to the bursting with newborn and toddler girls, with
dozens more arriving each month. Abandoned girls are said to account for
over 90 percent of the inmate populations of Chinese orphanages. At the
main orphanage in Wuhan, for instance, Kay Johnson reports that for the
four-year period from 1988 to 1992 over 90+ percent of the inmates were
girls. And still the foundlings keep coming in an endless stream.

The documentary about babies being stored in a room waiting for them to
die is really heartless and heartbreaking. It upsets me that they are being
treated as animals. Chinese government had no conscience at all. I'm
frustrated and amazed at the same time how this evil man could rule the
country that big! This is too stupid and immoral. How can someone do that to
those innocent babies??? This is so sick. Can't even believe that the rulers
were human! Without the love and compassion needed at this delicate age,
they will become nothing more than soulless animals. I am shook to my core.
Death for them is a God send. Poor beautiful babies. Treated worse than a
stray dog. Tied Up, rotting away. I am at a loss for words. Me Ming's barely
audible, painful and anguished cry will haunt my soul ... forever. God Speed
to the babies who are brutally treated.

Also, the one child policy devalues girls.

Humanity has been forgotten and this turn the world into misery. Humanity
means extending unconditional love to each and every living being on Earth.
Where in the world perfectly shared the value of humanity? This world
became so cruel that the innocent people are also affected. Due to the
hunger of power and pride, humans tend to act like animals. Heartless, cruel
and destructors of life. So where is Humanity? Nothing is more disappointing
than seeing our own kind, our own species kill innocent people, for yet
another time. My mind is in shock, my eyes are in tears seeing innocent
babies killed by these people.

If we only pay attention to the cries of the people suffering tremendously on

the hands of cruelty, Will we be able to hear them?