After Quake, Parents In China Start Over
After the government granted permission to parents of children who died in the Sichuan earthquake to have another child, many such families are trying to do just that. From the Wall Street Journal:
In Sichuan, there is some evidence of recovery. Six months after the earthquake, schools are being rebuilt. And bereaved parents are trying their best to move on after losing the only child that they were allowed to have under the region’s strict population-control policies. Many parents are taking advantage of government waivers and subsidies to help their odds of conceiving again.
More than a hundred quake mothers in the town of Dujiangyan — where hundreds of students were killed in their school when the earthquake struck on May 12 — are now pregnant, and there are more than 800 who want to have another child, says Wang Haiyun, a health official from Shanghai dispatched to help the town. Checkups and other health-care services for parents hoping to conceive again started in July, and will last for approximately three years.
Many parents, especially those of middle- or high-school students, are too old or have had procedures to prevent pregnancies because of the one-child policy. Some hospitals are trying to help.
This video accompanies the WSJ report:
