Select Page

Uyghur women ‘no longer baby-making machines’: China boasts about falling birth rates

China claims the collapse in population growth of the Uyghur community in Xinjiang is due to the “eradication of religious extremism” and not the result of extensively documented forced abortions and sterilisations.

On Thursday 8th January, the state-run publication, China Daily, claimed that: “Decreases in the birth rate and natural population growth rate in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in 2018 resulted from the eradication of religious extremism”.

China Daily cited a study on population change by the Xinjiang Development Research Center claiming that “extremism had incited people to resist family planning and its eradication had given Uygur women more autonomy when deciding whether to have children”.

The state-controlled media outlet quoted the report as saying: “For a period of time, the penetration of religious extremism made implementing family planning policy in southern Xinjiang, including Kashgar and Hotan prefectures, particularly difficult […] That had led to rapid population growth in those areas as some extremists incited locals to resist family planning policy, resulting in the prevalence of early marriage and bigamy, and frequent unplanned births”.

“The minds of Uygur women in Xinjiang were emancipated”

In a Tweet linking to the article which references the study from the Xinjiang Development Research Center, the US Chinese Embassy said:

“Study shows that in the process of eradicating extremism, the minds of Uygur women in Xinjiang were emancipated and gender equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no longer baby-making machines. They are more confident and independent”.

Twitter subsequently removed this post stating it had “violated the Twitter rules”. Revealingly, the Chinese Embassy’s Twitter account later reposted the story under a different caption:

“Study shows the population change in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region involves the overall improvement in population quality. An increasing number of youths chose to spend more time and energy on personal development”.

According to other Chinese state media reports, women were “spontaneously” taking up free IUDs and voluntarily being sterilised. The changes in birth rate, the state-run media say, were due to government limits on family size, poverty alleviation and education improvements, in addition to changes to cultural marriage practices and religious opposition to contraception.

Forced abortion and sterilisation among the Uyghur in Xijiang

Forced abortions and sterilisations are a well-documented phenomenon in China. Last year a doctor who escaped the regime in China shared how she participated in at least 500-600 operations on Uyghur women in the country, including forced abortion, forced sterilisation and forced removal of wombs.

Speaking to ITV News, the Uyghur woman also revealed abortions were carried out at full term and that infanticide – the purposeful causing of a baby’s death – was common practice.

In Westminster, pressure is mounting on the Government to confront the Chinese Communist Party as MPs draw attention to the population-suppression measures taken against the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang, China.

In an ‘Urgent Question’ to the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, in December 2020, Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP said:

“[It has been] shown that the Chinese Government forced Uyghur women into sterilisation. As a result, the Uyghur population in those regions fell by as much as 84% between 2015 and 2018. That is action verging, I believe, on genocide”.

Collapsing population

Similarly, Fiona Bruce MP has urged the Government to do all within its power to end the “appalling” treatment of the Uyghur community at the hands of the Chinese Government.

Mrs Bruce said: “[The Uyghurs] are violated through forced birth control, pregnancy checks, the mandatory insertion of painful intrauterine devices, forced sterilisation and abortions. We hear that that is happening at scale, to hundreds of thousands of women”.

“These population control measures are backed by mass detention as a punishment for failure to comply. The threat of being sent to prison – to the camps that we hear so much about – hangs over these women”.

An investigation by Associated Press found hundreds of thousands of Uyghur women have been subjected to forced to pregnancy checks, and forced sterilisation and abortion. The AP found birthrates fell by more than 60% between 2015 and 2018 in the mostly Uyghur regions of Hotan and Kashgar, compared with a fall of 4.2% nationwide.

These attacks on the Uyghur population through forced abortion and sterilisation, are taking place at the same time as hundreds of thousands are being used for slave labour. UK businesses are currently being urged to ensure their supply chains do not participate in this in any way.

Right To Life UK spokesperson, Catherine Robinson said: “The barefaced lies of the Chinese Communist Party about their unethical treatment of their own Uyghur population are truly astonishing”.

“We have heard of the extent of the crimes being committed against the Uyghur community, not only from independent reports, but also directly from those who participated in forced abortions and sterilisation and who subsequently escaped the regime”.

“The adoption of Western-style rhetoric in regard to ‘autonomy’, women being ‘emancipated’, the view of women as ‘baby-making machines’ and even the notion of fighting ‘religious extremism’ is revealing. It seems that the CCP is attempting to appropriate terms and phrases often used by women’s rights organisations and promoters of abortion to justify and obscure their horrendous human rights abuses”.

“Almost as disconcerting as the original, now deleted, tweet from the Chinese Embassy in the USA, is their follow-up post saying that their population control measures ‘involves the overall improvement in population quality’. This sounds eerily similar to the comments eugenicist and namesake of abortion giant, MSI Reproductive Choices, Marie Stopes made regarding her concerns about ‘the ever increasing stock of degenerate, feeble-minded and unbalanced’ who ‘are like the parasite upon the healthy tree sapping its vitality’.

URGENT
APPEAL
to protect vulnerable lives

Help stop three major anti-life threats.

Help fight the next phase of our battles against major assisted suicide and abortion up to birth threats.

Dear reader,

We are facing two major threats in the Lords - an extreme assisted suicide Bill and an abortion up to birth amendment.

THE GOOD NEWS - OUR STRATEGY IS WORKING

At Second Reading of the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill in the House of Lords, a record number of Peers spoke, and of those who took a position, around two-thirds opposed the assisted suicide Bill. That is more than double the number who supported it.

Our side also secured a significant win, with the establishment of a dedicated Lords Select Committee to further scrutinise the Bill’s proposals – and Committee Stage has been delayed until it reports.

This momentum has been built by tens of thousands of people like you. Thanks to your hard work, Peers are receiving a very large number of emails and letters by post, making the case against the Bill. 

Thanks to your support, we have been able to mount a major campaign in Parliament, in the media and online – alongside your own efforts – to keep us on course for our goal: that this dangerous Bill never becomes law.

BUT MORE CHALLENGES LIE AHEAD

We cannot become complacent. Well-funded groups - Dignity in Dying, My Death My Decision and Humanists UK - have poured millions into pushing assisted suicide. They can see support is slipping and will fight hard to reverse that.

This is not the only fight we are facing in the House of Lords.

At the same time, the Antoniazzi abortion up to birth amendment, which passed in the House of Commons in June, is moving through the House of Lords as part of the Crime and Policing Bill.

Second Reading will take place in a matter of weeks. It will then go on to Committee and Report Stages, where we will be up against the UK’s largest abortion providers – BPAS and MSI Reproductive Choices (formerly Marie Stopes) – who are expected to lobby for even more extreme changes to our abortion laws.

If the Antoniazzi amendment becomes law, it would no longer be illegal for women to perform their own abortions for any reason – including sex-selective purposes – at any point up to and during birth.

Thousands of vulnerable lives - at the beginning and the end of life - depend on what happens next. We must do everything in our power to stop these radical proposals.

WE NEED YOUR HELP

Our campaign against the Leadbeater Bill in the House of Lords is working, but the work we have already done has significantly stretched our limited resources.

We are now stepping up our efforts against the assisted suicide Bill while launching a major push to stop the abortion up to birth amendment in the Lords. 

To fight effectively on both fronts, we aim to raise £183,750 by midnight this Sunday (5 October 2025).

Every donation, large or small, will help protect lives, and UK taxpayers can add 25p to every £1 through Gift Aid at no extra cost.

Will you donate now to help protect vulnerable lives from these two major threats?

URGENT
APPEAL
to protect vulnerable lives

Help stop three major anti-life threats.

Help fight the next phase of our battles against major assisted suicide and abortion up to birth threats.