ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:

[A]ttention ought to focus at least briefly on the government policies that Chen took such risks to protest.

Most gruesome is family planning agencies' practice of dragging pregnant women out of their homes to have their fetuses destroyed, as part of the government's long-standing one-child policy. Forced abortions have occurred as late as nine months into a pregnancy.

The victims may also have IUDs inserted without their consent to prevent future pregnancies. The advocacy group All Girls Allowed says these atrocities help explain why China is the only nation on Earth where women are more likely to commit suicide than are men.

Chen's crime was to publicize this savagery by filing a class-action lawsuit on behalf of women subjected to it. He was jailed for more than four years for "disturbing public order" and upon his release, he and his family were placed under strict house arrest, deprived of visitors.

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