Soccer Dad

Only children

This is an issue that my wife noted immediately after the earthquake that exacerbated the tragedy. It merited a single line in yesterday's report from the NY Times:

The official promises and apologies, however, have failed to mollify the parents, most of whom lost their only child.

Knoxville Talks observed last week:
Imagine having to get a government certificate in order to obtain permission to have another baby after losing your only child to natural disaster.

h/t Instapundit puts it.

It's nearly 30 years since Stephen Mosher was expelled from China for revealing the effects of the one child per family policy, so it's hardly a secret. And yet the Times doesn't once say in its article that the fact that so many families lost their only child is the result of a government policy.

No doubt the Chinese will identify various officials responsible for the poor school construction. The officials will be tried, executed and their organs harvested. But it will be by those who enforce the one child policy. Those who compounded the tragedy.

The parents are demanding an accounting of what allowed this tragedy to occur. Despite its totalitariansim, China does seem to allow some level of protest. I wonder if it might lead to easing the restriction on only children.

(One illustration of the result of this policy is the imbalance in the gender ratio in China.)