For more than half a century, the State has had a strict birth control policy. The “two children per couple” rule, however, has never been so close to being overturned.
The anti-birth policy in Vietnam, firmly condemned by the Church, has caused an imbalance in the gender ratio and a staggeringh number of abortions. Several signs indicate that the Vietnamese government is ready to relax its policy.
In a press conference on October 17, 2017, Nguyên Van Tân, a high-ranking official in the Demography and Family Planning Department, shed some light on the new direction of birth policy.
This evolution will first and foremost affect the members of the Communist Party who “owe it to themselves to be models in this domain as in others”, said this senior official. According to him, disciplinary measures may be abandoned for members of the Party who have gone against the law and had three or four children.
Nguyên Van Tân also said that the authorities are in the process of correcting certain provisions of the law that are no longer in agreement with the new birth policy.
