Chen Yifan, who is resolved to be single for life, has never expected that at 45, she can realize her dream of producing a baby for herself without having to get married-and legally.

The woman is quite successful in her career as manager of a private company in Changchun City, Jilin Province, northeast China. Her personal life, however, is not. She fell in love with a classmate back in the early 1980s, and was heart-broken when the young man left her. Since then, the woman has found that no man in this world is good enough to be her husband. Though single, she wants to have a child of her own. "I'll be burning with envy whenever I see a mother and a child necking each other," she tells China Features.

In China, feudalism, as a social system, collapsed nearly a century ago, when the country became a republic in 1911. But old ideas die out slow. Births out of wedlock are still frowned upon. Such births are considered as "unplanned" under China's family planning law and policy that call for incorporating births into government planning for social and economic development and punishing those having given "unplanned births" whether they are married or not.

Chen Yifan's luck, however, turned in the fullness of time when the Jilin Provincial People's Congress, the province's highest organ of state power, allowed women like her to produce a baby. The Regulation on Population and Family Planning in Jilin Province promulgated by the Congress in October has a clause allowing "women (in the province) having reached the legal age for marriage while intending to be single for life to give births with the aid of legal medical methods".

By "legal medical methods", the Regulation means "assisted reproductive technology" (ART) services such as artificial insemination. Human cloning is illegal in China.

Protection of Single Women's Right to Birth

The Regulation is, in fact, the first local legislation ever promulgated in China that legalizes the right of single women to birth. To women like Chen Yifan, this local legislation comes as a blessing but, no sooner had it been promulgated a hot debate broke out across the country.

According to local officials, ten years before the latest regulation was published, there had already been inquiries from single women about whether they were allowed to produce a "test tube baby". "It may be interesting to note that the inquirers are, without exception, well educated and well-off," says Jiang Guomin, director of the Law and Legislation Division of the Jilin Provincial Family Planning Commission. "Their demand was strong, even though they were few in numbers. One inquirer, a teacher, even threatened to sue us if we denied her of the right to birth."

Jiang admits that the commission was quite sympathetic towards these women. "But," the official says, "in the absence of a family planning law we can't make a local legislation allowing women to give births without getting married."

The Law of the People's Republic of China on Population and Family Planning, which the National People's Congress (the Chinese parliament) adopted on December 29, 2001, became effective on September 1, 2002. The Jilin Provincial People's Congress was now obliged to formulate a set of local regulations on implementation of the law by proceeding from local conditions. "That prompted the Congress to debate the possibility of legalizing births given by single women," Jiang says.

The national law, the official continues, "gives due stress to protection of citizens' right to birth". "Most deputies to the Congress agreed that though they are few in numbers, women like Chen Yifan should enjoy the right," he says.

Zhang Manliang, an official at the Legislation Office of the Jilin Provincial Government, insists that "the local legislation conforms to the basic principle of the national law and is conducive to protecting people's right to birth." Zhang was one of the first to lobby for a local legislation in the interest of women like Chen Yifan.

Misgivings

Promulgation of the local legislation immediately touched off a heated debate across the country. An opinion poll conducted by a popular website- www.sina.com-shows that 60% of the respondents support the latest move taken by Jilin Province while 40% are opposed to it.

Yang Xianglan, chairwoman of the Jilin Provincial Women's Federation and member of the Legislation Committee of the Jilin Provincial People's Congress, is a staunch exponent of women's rights. "Chinese women are becoming increasingly independent along with the country's social development," she says. "They have the right to independently decide whether to marry or to be single, and whether to have a baby or to be childless."

"When a woman chooses to be single, that does not mean she is deprived of the right to birth," Yang argues.

Meng Fanchao, professor of law with the Northeast Normal University, describes the local legislation as "positive" to the province's social development. Meanwhile, he has some misgivings about it. "What if the single mother dies when her child is still too young to be financially independent?" he asks. "Who will take care of the child? Should the physiological father be obliged to bring up the child?"

"The child, like all children bom out of wedlock, should have the right to paternal love and education, as well as the right to know who his or her father is," he concedes. "How to handle problems like these?"

There are also people who question the moral soundness of Jilin's legislation. Liang Jianfang from south China's Guangdong says the law is unfair to child. "We have decided even before the child's birth that he or she is destined to be fatherless. Is it moral to create a broken family by artificial means? "

Professor Fu Xiuhua at the College of Philosophy and Sociology, Jilin University, holds that a child should be the product of parental love and have the right to love and care in a wholesome family to eventually become a person of integrity. "While giving single women the right to birth," he says, "this local legislation takes light of the rights and interests of the child."

Others have raised the issue of men's right to birth. "Men and women are equal before law," Li Xin, a journalist in Beijing, says. "What if a single man wants to have a baby of his own? And what if a woman regrets after giving birth to a child, and decides to marry? Can we deprive her of the right to marriage?"

To these misgivings, Zhang Manliang seems well prepared. "Nothing pioneering in nature can be risk-free," he says. "You can't give up eating for fear of getting choked."

Zhang believes that the local legislation represents a new step taken to protect the right of the people to birth. "In the main, Chinese legislation emphasizes the obligation of citizens in light of the vital need for the country to control the growth of its population," he says. "We are beginning to shift the emphasis to both obligation and rights."

Besides, the official insists, some of the misgivings are "groundless". "In China," he notes, "Sperm donators have to sign an agreement with the relevant parties to the effect that as physiological fathers, they have no obligation to rear the children produced with their sperm, and neither do they have the right to ask for support from the children."

"The right of birth is a basic legal right," he argues. "The child's demand for fatherly love is not a right that should be regulated by law."

"If those who have already produced a child through medical assistance change mind and want to marry," Zhang says, "the Law on Population and Family Planning will prohibit them from getting married in order to have a second child."

In Jilin Province (population 27 million), the birth rate has kept decreasing. Over the past two decades, a total of 10 million births have been avoided thanks to effort to encourage one-child families.

Consider Carefully Before Making a Decision

The official advises women like Chen Yifan to consider carefully before deciding to apply for having a child through medical means.

In China, he notes, it generally takes more than 1,000 yuan (US$120) for an artificial insemination and 15,000 to 20,000 yuan (US$1,800 to 2,410) for a test-tube baby. "The cost is definitely expensive relative to incomes," he warns. "Besides, the success rate is low for ART."

The Xiangya Hospital for Reproduction and Genetics in south China's Hunan Province is one of the eight state-designated hospitals for ART services. Experts there say that under standing rules of the Ministry of Health, applications for ART services must conform to the state family planning policy, ethical principles and relevant laws. An applicant must produce his or her marriage certificate and ID card along with a paper issued by the local government certifying that the requested childbirth is covered by local population plans.

China Features has learned that the State Family Planning Commission has reported its views on Jilin Province's legislation to the State Council, China's highest governing body. If the State Council favors the MOH rules, the National People's Congress will demand a revision of Jilin's legislation.

Jilin remains the only province where single women like Chen Yifan could produce a baby legally. The municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin, the Chengdu City and the provinces of Guangzhou, Shaanxi and Henan have made it clear that they choose not to follow suit, at least not in the near future.

Back in Jilin Province, many people have called the Provincial Family Planning Commission for counseling since the legislation became effective on November 1, 2002, but none has actually applied.

Whatever the result, Chen Yifan feels lucky to be a resident in Jilin. She's been doing exercises at a local fitness center to prepare herself for giving birth to a healthy baby. "I'm waiting for the matching measures to the legislation to come out so that my dream to be a mother can be realized," the woman says.