A Chinese woman has been granted asylum by an immigration judge as a result of her fear of being coerced into an abortion under the People’s Republic of China’s one child per family policy. US immigration law allows someone to claim asylum who can demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution on account of, among other possible categories, membership in a particular social group. The Chinese woman was able to convince Immigration Judge Jeffrey S. Chase of New York that she is a member of a social group including Chinese women who have already had one child and choose to defy the Chinese government’s one child per family rule even though the punishment may be forced sterilization or late term abortions. The judge noted that the social class would not include all Chinese women or even Chinese women who object to the one-child-per-family rule. The judge also distinguished between a fear of forced sterilization and a fear of a forced late term abortion. Forced sterilization has been held by US courts not to be enough to meet the persecution requirements under the asylum rules. To qualify for asylum here, a woman would have to show that she is a national of China who possesses a deep belief in the right to procreate, she has actually violated the one-child-per-family rule and she has a reasonable fear of suffering “an extraordinarily severe punishment such as a late term abortion.”
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