(Sep 27, 2011) Pregnant women lacking birth permits are hunted down like criminals by population planning police in China and forcibly aborted.

The degree of monitoring and coercion of ordinary women in their reproductive lives in communist China is shocking to persons living in the free world.

In a congressional hearing chaired by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.4), Sept. 22, several victims of communist China’s one-child policy testified to their experiences of coercion and involuntary abortion.

"For over three decades, brothers and sisters have been illegal; a mother has absolutely no right to protect her unborn baby from state-sponsored violence," said Rep. Smith, who in his 30-year congressional career has chaired 29 congressional human rights hearings focused in whole or in part on China’s one-child policy.

The policy was introduced in 1978, and Chinese authorities say it will remain in place until at least 2015, said Valerie Hudson, political science professor at Brigham Young University.