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Introduction
Sex and reproduction is one of the oldest but also the hottest topics
that attract attention from both the scientific community and the
general public all over the world. For example, human beings are
assumed to be the offspring of the seven daughters of Eve who lived
in Africa about 100,000 years ago. Historically, human society was
thought to evolve from matriarchy to patriarchy, and reproduction
worship constituted a key element of ancient human culture. It has
been predicted that in the foreseeable future the tremendous breakthrough
in biomedicine and genetic science is likely to revolutionize human
reproduction, which presumably will break down the traditionally
interpersonal relations of sex, love, procreation and family. Are
these human fortunes or misfortunes? Different people may have different
beliefs in this regard.
Chinese anthropologists and archeologists have long believed that
the ancestors of modern Chinese were not from Africa but were indigenous,
although a recent Chinese population and molecular genetics study
revealed the opposite (Chu et al 1998). Indeed, China is a country
of great contrasts. It has the world's largest population, yet a
relative dearth of natural resources per capita. It has a very long
history and rich culture, yet an educational system the quality
of which varies enormously as well as 150 million illiterate and
semi-illiterate people. It has the fastest growing economy, yet
has stayed in the socialistically one-party-ruling political system.
It covers a vast territory, yet the level of development varies
greatly from region to region. Since China launched its "one couple
one child" family planning campaign in the early 1970s, and particularly
promulgated its first eugenic law, *The Maternal and Infant Health
Care Law*, in 1994, it has attracted wide attention from the international
community. There have been many voices to be heard on the issues
of population, birth control and eugenic policy in China. However,
the majority of these are western opinions. In this paper, I would
like to address sex, reproduction and the related issues using some
of my research work as examples.
Sex and Sexual Deviation
Human sex is expressed in four dimensions, which include genetics
(sex determining genes and sex chromosomes), biology (sexual organs
and the secondary sexual characteristics), psychology (desire to
be a male or female), and sociology (social identity of gender).
In general terms, any dissociation of these dimensions means sexual
deviation. Whether a person with a sexual deviation is thought to
be normal or abnormal depends on what the situation is. For example,
from a medical point of view, sexual deviation is, to a large extent,
abnormal.
Although the prevalence and incidence of sexual deviation in China
are unknown, people with sexual deviations including homosexuality
are not uncommon historically and culturally. For example, in the
old Chinese royal families, all male householders were castrated.
In the old Chinese opera houses, a male-dominated community, only
a male was allowed to play a female. Through long-term training
and practicing, an actor gradually lost his male identity. However,
the mainstream attitudes towards sexual deviation and homosexuals
were very negative over a long period of time in China. In the mid
1980s, I conducted a survey among people with sexual deviations
using biological and psychological means in Chengdu, China. I found
that a small proportion of male homosexuals and their family members
did show some changes in their electroencephalogram, sexual hormone
and the Minnesota Mental and Personality Inventories (Mao et al
1989 and 1991). These results to some extent were in line with an
old hypothesis that male homosexuality is likely to be inherited
while female homosexuality is likely to be acquired, and probably
support the claims for hunting the genes responsible for homosexuals
in biomedical community today. The most interesting findings, however,
were that the parents of those male homosexuals were much more anxious
and concerned than their sons. This was partly because they feared
that their sons might not have children, which would lead to the
interruption of their family tree or pedigree for the next generation,
and partly due to their worry about losing family face or dignity.
Is this a reflection of reproduction worship another way around?
Obviously this is an intrinsic question warranting further investigation.
After 20 years of reform and openness, people with a sexual deviation
and homosexuality now appear to be more tolerated in China. This
is because politically these people, unlike political dissidents
or cult members, do not threat the stability of Chinese society.
Moreover, it is a very basic human right that people can have their
sexual desire satisfied lawfully. Since the sex ratio in the Chinese
population is imbalanced (men outnumber women by 30 million) it
is necessary to create a harmonic social environment to meet people's
needs. Another solution for these medical and social issues would
probably be in the development of the advanced biomedical technologies
such as human cloning and the artificial surrogate mother in China.
These techniques would presumably offer an ice-breaking avenue for
the people with sexual deviations and homosexuals to have their
own biological children without coercively changing their sexual
preference, and would therefore ease the fear of interrupting the
family tree on the part of their parents or family members. However,
at the moment China is greatly lacking both in funding and expertise
to carry out scientific research in these areas. For example a recent
report about a young woman who became her older brother's daughter's
natural surrogate mother revealed how far the Chinese medical and
legal professionals are lagging behind in dealing with issues of
surrogacy (Yang Cheng Evening News, 7 June 2000).
Marriage and Family
It is hardly possible to talk about sex and reproduction without
including marriage and family as they form a close circle of the
social life of human beings. There have been many positive and negative
descriptions of marriage and family in the world. For example, a
popular Chinese exhortation said, "Marriage is like a castle. People
who are outside want to get in, while people inside want to get
out". Traditionally, Chinese marriage and family were quite stable
due to the thousand-year influence of the three great teachings,
i.e.Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. Following the economic reform
and social openness in China, however, people's attitudes towards
sex, marriage and family are changing. For example, a recent survey
among Chinese servicemen, who are believed to be the most disciplined
people in China, showed that half of 637 interviewees would not
oppose extra-marital relationships (Sing Tao Daily, 31 May 2000).
The change of the social environment in China is also leading to
an increase in the divorce rate in general, and particularly in
the younger generation.
Divorce is a major life event for the people involved. What are
the attitudes of the divorced people in China? To address this issue,
I conducted a social and psychological survey among the divorced
people in Chengdu, China, in the early 1990s. When asked about the
reasons for divorce, the majority of female interviewees said "third
party involvement" (74%), "lack of emotional exchange and communication"
(66%), "intolerable personality" (59%), "extreme unhappiness in
family life" (56%). Less than half said "distrust" (46%), "the time
of living together is too short" (46%), and "problems in having
sex" (20%). The male interviewees, on the other hand, listed "extreme
unhappiness in family life", "lack of emotional exchange and communication",
"intolerable personality", "third party involvement", and "problems
in having sex" as the major divorce reasons. When asked about their
future life, half the female and male interviewees said that they
wanted to remarry. When asked why, both female and male respondents
ranked "looking for a new life", "need to be loved", "loneliness",
and "ones own happiness" as the major reasons. When asked about
the characteristics of the future partner, the female and male interviewees
regarded "healthy", "observing national laws and social regulations",
and "honorable personality" as most important. In addition, the
majority of divorced women would prefer their future partner to
be older. In contrast the majority of male divorcees would like
their future partner to be younger. The survey results also suggested
that although psychologically both male and female divorcees are
equally traumatized, women are, to large extent, much more vulnerable
(Mao unpublished data). This may explain why a public debate has
been intensified in recent years about whether to include special
measures in the revised Chinese Marriage Law to punish those who
are involved in adultery or extra-marital relations in order to
protect women's rights.
Population and Family Planning
Population growth is one of the most challenging issues in the world.
For example, in the last century the Chinese population increased
3 times from 400 million in 1900 to 1.2 billion in 1994. Meanwhile
the natural conditions such as arable lands and natural resources
have deteriorated due to urbanization, over-mining, and deforestation.
In the past 20 years, the Chinese economy achieved the fastest annual
growth rate in the world. However, the increased population has,
to a large extent, consumed the newly increased part of the economy.
Therefore China is still one of the poorest countries in the world.
To balance the growth of population and economy, the Chinese government
has made population control and family planning a top national policy.
For example, article 25 of the Constitution of the People's Republic
of China stipulated that "The state promotes the practice of family
planning in order that population growth may be in keeping with
socio-economic development." Article 49 of the constitution and
article 12 of the Marriage Law state that "Both husband and wife
have a duty to practice family planning." The aims of Chinese family
planning policy are promotion of deferred marriage and childbearing,
fewer but healthier births, prevention of genetic defects, advocating
the practice of "one couple one child", and encouragement of birth
spacing for those who have practical difficulties with having one
child (Wu 1994). This policy has been implemented most successfully
in the urban areas. Because of this, the growth rate of the population
in China has been controlled. For example, from 1980 to 1999, it
is estimated that there were about 300 million babies not born.
However, this policy has also led to several social problems. One
of these is that a new generation consisting of only children has
been produced in China who will be the major workforce in the future.
If this policy continues without any sort of reform, China is very
likely to become a country which lacks human resources or labor.
The Chinese government appears to realize this serious social issue,
and is adjusting its family planning policy in which a single-child-couple
will be allowed to have one more child (Da Gong Bao, 2 June 2000).
Although the relics of matriarchal society still can be seen in
some of ethnic minorities in China, patriarchy has dominated Chinese
society for thousands years. This is because that for a very long
period of time, China was a rural society in which men were the
major productive forces. In addition, as I mentioned earlier, a
son is thought to be an inheritor of a family´s blood. To a large
extent, Chinese people prefer sons. The Chinese "one couple one
child" family planning policy implemented against such cultural
and social background inevitably worsens the situation of already
existing sex ratio imbalance. For example, from 1975 to 1979 the
sex ratio at birth in Hebei, China, was 109.6 boys per 100 girls.
From 1980 to 1984 this figure reached 115 boys per 100 girls (Wen
1993). The purposes of China's Maternal and Infant Health Care Law
were to provide a legal basis for its family planning policy, to
regulate the actual practice at the grass roots, and to tackle the
problems emerging in the process of implementing this policy. For
example, to avoid further imbalance of the sex ratio generally in
China, this law stipulates that non-medical sex selection by any
means be banned. Now this law has been adopted by most of the provincial
and municipal governments in China.
Genetics and Ethics
Prevention of genetic defects is one of the most important goals
contained in the Chinese family planning policy and the Maternal
and Infant Health Care Law. This is because China has a large number
of people with physical and mental disabilities. For example, a
national survey of disabled people showed that in 1987 there were
51.64 million people with disabilities (4.9% of the entire population
at that time). Among these disabled people, about 65% were due to
postnatal diseases and injuries, and 35% were due to genetic diseases
and birth defects (Guo and Meng 1993). Obviously improving ordinary
people's living conditions and their basic health care could prevent
the majority of these disabilities in China.
How to prevent genetic diseases in the general population is one
of the most contentious and also most complicated issues in the
world. For example, in the past western eugenicists believed that
reducing the number of births of babies with congenital malformations
and genetic diseases was possible by social and medical means such
as banning marriage, sterilization and abortion in the people with
physical and mental handicaps. Nowadays population geneticists claim
that it is unlikely to reduce the prevalence and incidence of recessive
genetic diseases in the general population unless the entire population
is wiped out. By contrast molecular geneticists and genetic economists
regard genetic testing and screening as a cost-effective approach
to preventing genetic diseases, particularly those that are curable
at an early stage. Clinical geneticists and genetic ethicists however
argue that genetic education is the best way to reduce the occurrence
of genetic diseases. Perhaps one thing is true - the more knowledge
people have about genetics, the more views they will express.
In the last 20 years in China, genetics was reborn from a long time
of political interference (Mao 1997). For example, in 1994, China
launched its human genome project. This year, China completed sequencing
of the short arm of human chromosome 3 (1% of entire human genome).
In 1993, I conducted a national survey on ethics and genetics. The
results showed that Chinese geneticists expressed very different
views on ethical, legal and social issues of genetics compared with
their western counterparts (Mao and Wertz 1997; Mao 1998). The Chinese
Maternal and Infant Health Care Law has, to some extent, reflected
these views. Recently some Chinese ethicists and geneticists claimed
that Chinese geneticists were far from the eugenic movement (Chen
et al 1999). However, reports from China did show that Chinese people,
including medical professionals, are very enthusiastic about using
new genetic technologies such as preimplantation genetic diagnosis
and therapeutic embryo cloning to improve the quality of humans
(Sing Tao Daily, 5 June 2000). Obviously these are eugenic opinions.
There are several explanations for these social trends in China.
Firstly, there has neither been open discussion in the genetic community
nor public debate on the ethical, legal and social issues of genetics,
although the 1993 survey revealed that most Chinese geneticists
thought that ethical guidelines were necessary to improve genetic
services in China (Mao 1998). Secondly, nowadays most Chinese geneticists
are only interested in the scientific aspects of genetics and do
not care about the social issues involved although the 18th International
Congress of Genetics held in Beijing, China in 1998 announced that
it is a geneticist's duty to objectively advise the governments
and to inform the public about the positive and negative sides of
genetic technology. Thirdly, Chinese people lack knowledge of western
eugenic history. Chinese culture plus current family planning policy
make it easy for people to accept eugenic ideas. Therefore it is
imperative that the international genetic community should not only
maintain academic exchanges with the Chinese geneticists but also
help the Chinese people be aware of how to use genetic knowledge
ethically to avoid any potential harm (Mao 1999). This is exactly
what the Eurasia Millennium Limited, UK, intends to do. We sincerely
appeal for international sponsors and collaborators to work together
with us in this field.
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