Kathleen Parker: Washington

Will U.S. condemn China's birth policy?

Washington -- One of the few incontrovertible assertions one can reasonably make is that no one supports forced abortion.

Yet, coerced abortions, as well as involuntary sterilizations, are commonplace in China, Beijing's protestations notwithstanding. While the Chinese Communist Party insists that abortions are voluntary under the nation's one-child policy, electronic documentation recently smuggled out of the country tells a different story.

Congressional members of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission heard some of that story Tuesday, two days before President Obama was slated to leave for Asia, including China, to discuss economic issues.

Among evidence provided by two human rights organizations, ChinaAid and Women's Rights Without Frontiers, were tales of pregnant women essentially being hunted down and forced to submit to surgery or induced labor.

Reggie Littlejohn, founder and president of the Frontiers group, told the commission that China's one-child policy "causes more violence against women and girls than any other official policy on Earth."

A woman pregnant without permission has to surrender her unborn child to government enforcers.

Late-term abortions are problematic, but the Chinese are nothing if not efficient. According to a 2009 State Department report, monetary incentives and penalties are attached to population targets, creating what amounts to bounties on the unborn.

Those who dissent, meanwhile, are persecuted.

Such has been the fate of activist Chen Guangcheng, who is serving a four-year sentence after exposing 130,000 forced abortions and sterilizations in Linyi County, Shandong province, in 2005. Guangcheng, who is blind, was severely beaten and denied medical care the following year. Obviously, the U.S. is in an awkward position with China, our second-largest trading partner and the largest holder of our government debt. But Littlejohn hopes Obama will "truly represent American values, including our strong commitment to human rights."

She is also calling on Planned Parenthood and NARAL to speak up for reproductive choice in China.

Kathleen Parker writes for the Orlando Sentinel.