Chinese maternity hospital outed for regulating pregnancies

BEIJING — Even though China ended its controversial one-child policy last year, Chinese women  aren't free to get pregnant when they choose.

This week, a maternity hospital in Beijing was caught trying to control when its female staff could have babies, the latest in a string of Chinese companies that set so-called fertility schedules.

The Tongzhou Maternity and Child Health Institute required female doctors and nurses to apply for permission to become pregnant,  then fined them if they failed to conceive in the three-month window allotted to them, the Beijing News reported.

Public outrage prompted the hospital to announce it was canceling the policy as of Friday, and authorities vowed all fines would be paid back to the employees. 

"We get the right to have another baby but we do have the freedom to have it when we want," a woman by the name of OuNiDou wrote on Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter. 

Another by the name of Shuzong2878 put the hospital policy in the context of China's long, brutal attempt to control population growth. "A fine is not too bad," she said. "At least they didn't force you to get an abortion."

In May, staff at a hospital in the southern city of Dongguan were told they would have their salary docked and would not be considered for promotion if any had a baby out of turn. Also in May, teachers In the central Henan province were told there would  be a quota for the number of women who could be pregnant at one time.

Such moves to regulate pregnancies may stem from the sudden lifting of a decades-old policy that limited most families to one child. Many families rushed to have a second.

“In schools, 90% of the teachers are female. If the school does not set a timetable, some classes might simply have to be scrapped,” the People’s Daily quoted an unnamed education official as saying in May.  

Even before the one-child policy was lifted, setting pregnancy schedules were common in industries with mostly female employees. The Beijing hospital had been setting reproductive schedules for about a decade.

In July 2015, before all families were given permission to have a second child, a bank in Henan dictated when its female cashiers could have children.

“An employee birth plan has been established and will be strictly enforced,” the bank said in a notice that was widely circulated online. “Employees who do not give birth according to the plan and whose work is impacted will face a one-time fine of 1,000 yuan ($150) and will not be considered for promotion,” it said.

In the United States, discriminatory policies toward pregnant women in the workplace are illegal under federal law.