Each year many pregnant Chinese women try and cross the border into Hong Kong in order to give birth. Apparently, in the past few years tens of thousands of women have crossed the border from mainland China into Hong Kong to deliver their children. Last year this number reached approximately 12,000. By making the trek into Hong Kong, women from mainland China are able to circumvent the country's one-child policy, and gain automatic residency rights (that come with health and education benefits) for their child in Hong Kong. The numbers of births by Chinese women from the mainland now account for almost a third of Hong Kong births, and are placing a burden on local hospital wards.

Now, as a solution to this phenomenon, Hong Kong's authorities are increasing fees and security by setting up shop at the border to turn these pregnant women away. Here's the kicker:

From next month, women judged by teams of doctors to be more than seven months pregnant will not be allowed in unless they have confirmation of an advance booking at a hospital. The measure will apply to all mainland pregnant women, but not to women from outside the territory…

Wow. Imagine the scene: A team of doctors at the border will determine how pregnant a woman is and then decide if she can legitimately cross the border. Sounds like quite a process. A discussion has been raging about this over at the ever thought-provoking, Feministing, for quite some time now.

Supporters of the law cite overpopulation as a problem and the limited medical resources in Hong Kong as key reasons for agreeing with the policy. Both of these things are relevant concerns. Here, however are a couple of additional questions that come to my mind:

1. Why prevent people from one part of a nation from entering into another part of the same nation for their medical care? Both the mainland and Hong Kong are, since 1997, part of the same country. There's a lot more money and greater access to resources in Hong Kong, making their medical services better and residency a valuable commodity. This smacks of class based politics to me.
2. Do the Chinese authorities believe that this policy will prevent these births from occurring at all? If not, then why is it acceptable to police and regulate social concerns ON women's bodies in the first place? If the one-child policy is not working, or if health resources are stretched, then perhaps the place to look for change is to those policies themselves. Instead, women traveling within the bounds of their own nation will be subjected to invasions of their privacy based on some assessment of how pregnant they are? Look closely here to see where the burden is placed.

Regardless of what one thinks of the over-population question and what the role of a nation-state should be in regulating movement of its citizens, there's certainly enough material here to question the justification and validity of such a policy. And if nothing else, this is the perfect example of legislation actually falling on the physical site of a woman's body, something we all know enough about to be wary of.

For the story, see UK Telegraph and BBC Coverage.