Welcome to my journey, an exploration of sorts.

Before I take you any further on this blog I would like to first explain how I arrived to where I’m at. One day, while doing my typical blog surfing, I came upon a link that read 61 Christian Women forced to have abortions. Being avidly pro-life, I clicked it curious what I would find. I ended up on the China View Blog. What I read left me completely shocked.

While I had known for quite awhile that China practices population control through their one-child policy, and has always hated it, this time it penetrated much deeper. Reading the stories of my Christian brothers and sisters on the other side of the world having their almost to term, and sometimes at term babies, ripped out of their bodies tore a hole in my heart beat. Having a 2 children under the age of 4 it has not been long since I have felt my babies growing inside. The idea of doing your best to keep those babies alive and protect them from a government that wants them dead struck a new chord for me. The government deciding to suck life out of you and killing it with their bare hands if the baby somehow survived the process.

Not much later, I found an article on live human organ harvesting. Having been in a bubble and never having heard of this before, this atrocity seemed too impossible, too inhumane to be true. It seemed like something I would find in a science fiction novel that portrayed the decline of human-kind to the point of zero conscience and empathy. The sad part, it wasn’t a piece of fiction.

Curious about this topic, I dug deeper. I read the human organ harvesting report. Despite the length, I trekked through it over several sittings. At times I had to put it down because I had to do something for my children. Other times the information saddened me so much, I had to put it down. It left me with absolute assurance this practice was both continuing and strengthening in China, despite the government’s complete denial. Of course, the deny Tienanmen Square happened and we have video footage of that event.

I spent a month trying to figure out how to articulate what I was learning. The enormity of what my head and heart were trying to grasp caused words to completely fail me. After that month, I did my best. With so much information, the difficulty of choosing which to share with my readers overwhelmed. I knew most would not have the time or desire to read the lengthy report themselves, but somehow more people needed to find out about what was happening a half-world away.

I kept my eye on the China View Blog and kept praying about what God wanted me to do with this gigantic burden I felt. At times I felt crazy. I felt insignificant. I felt far too insignificant to make any sort of difference in this matter. I questioned over and over the ideas I started coming up with. I kept asking God to take the burden from me. After all, I had learned of many atrocious things over my life-time that broke my heart. But none of them stuck with me like this.

I could not stop thinking about the Chinese people. Those who live in religious oppression and are forced to do that which was against every fiber of what they believe. I kept thinking of the manufacturing industry and the vast amount of workers living and breathing horrible conditions for the sake of saving money. I thought of the vast amount of money China makes on the United States alone, when just about everything about their world-view goes against what we value as a country. What do China and the US have in common, our love of money. And that love of money, that the Bible calls, “the root of all evil”, gives the US and China a sick sort of intimacy. An intimacy that could at some point bring us down.

I know that no matter how insignificant and powerless I prove to be, I have to try something. I have to TRY to make a difference. I have to try to continue learning more and more about China and educate others in the process. I hold no claim of being a China expert. I have so very much to learn in every aspect of the matter, but I’m embarking on a journey to learn more. I have to know why this burdens me so much. I have to try….. (to be continued tomorrow)

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I wrote this post as the first of a two part submission to theWriting Thoughts and Grow Your Writing Business Blogs’ Group writing project called Shared Thoughts 07. The project is to post about a challange, and approach; or a problem and solution through 2 posts on your blog. I needed to write my “about” page anyway. After I post both, they will be compacted into one text on my “about” page.
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If you haven’t already, Please consider entering the Not China Made Contest and you could win a $50 gift card to American Apparel!

I have been keeping my lips shut on an issue burning inside of me. Normally when injustice boils my blood I can do nothing but shout it from the proverbial rooftops. But this… this has been so hard to digest.I’m not sure why I have been clueless. After I learned of it, I brought it up on seperate occasions to both my father and brother and they both knew about it. I can not fathom why this isn’t on MSM (main stream media) and why there isn’t total OUTCRY about it! Please Media don’t tell me for the one MILLIONTH time what Paris Hilton is up to and not report what may possibly be one of the biggest human rights violations of our time!

It isn’t bad enough that China forces abortions on women about to give birth. And repetitively commits religious persecution by imprisoning people for their faith. But what do they do with these prisoners???

THEY FREAKING HARVEST THEIR ORGANS TO MAKE MONEY FROM RICH FORIEGNERS DESPERATE TO LIVE!

This has been on my mind for awhile now, unable to imagine the depths of depravity one must be in to be able to kill a person, even 5 people at times, for the possibility of finding 1 kidney for well funded person.

Of course, China denies this. Hard proof of the practice is difficult to find, but I have been reading incredible research on the topic and believe there is more than enough convincing evidence This Report on Organ Harvesting takes an investment of time to read… but if this issue breaks your heart the way it has mine you need to schedule the time and read it.

I have not been able to figure out how to sum up my thoughts on the process, or how to appropriately compile talking points from the report… I have not attempted discussing it on Mommyzabs previously. I wanted to do this topic justice. But all I can do now is pray and beg people to listen, even if my writing can appropriately reflect the urgency. My influence in this world is completely minute. However, I’m compelled to do whatever I can.

I’m not typically a boycotter. Mostly because Christians seem to take boycotting to a ridiculous extreme. It takes A LOT to make me boycott. I’m just not sure I can give another penny to support China knowingly. The more I talk to others, the more insight I gain… the more I have to speak with my money. Sometimes it is the only language people listen too.

My Boycott won’t be able to be 100%. Sometimes it just is not feasible (like when my child gets a McD’s kids meal with his friends and there is a made in China toy with it, It is hard to tell a 3 year old they can’t have it when all their kids have their kids meal toys at the table…) But I have already begun looking at labels on everything and staying away from China.

On that tangent… since boycotting China makes it quite difficult to buy toys for your children, I found a helpful link for finding products (including toys and toy brands) that are not made in China.

I am going to publish the following article in my blog in full and I do hope that isn’t inappropriate. I want you to read it as it is a better summation than I can do. Please do take the time to read the Full Report. There is more information than could ever justly be summarized.

Organs harvested from live prisoners
Allison Hanes, CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, May 18, 2007TORONTO — Foreign patients who travel to China for transplants are likely receiving organs culled from political prisoners who are alive when their corneas, kidneys and livers are harvested, then left to die, an international group of doctors armed with a chilling Canadian report is warning.

In a new twist on an old practice of using organs from executed criminals, China has since 2000 turned to living donors and outlawed Falun Gong members to supply a growing trade in medical transplants, Doctors Against Organ Harvesting said Thursday during a public forum held at the University of Toronto.

With increasing numbers of Canadians on long waiting lists turning to China to save their own lives, the newly formed organization is seeking to warn patients that someone else’s life is likely being sacrificed in the process of obtaining organs.

“Each person who travels to China for an organ causes the death of another human,” said Dr. Torsten Trey, a Washington, D.C.-based physician and founding member of Doctors Against Organ Harvesting.

The group is sounding the alarm in the medical community about mounting evidence of unethical transplants in China. They want doctors to impress the information upon their patients. They want hospitals and universities to close their doors to visiting Chinese physicians and scholars looking to hone their techniques. And they want medical journals to reject research on transplants conducted in China.

“Medical science cannot build up any knowledge which is based on inhuman and unethical procedures,” said Trey, who compared China’s pilfering of organs from Falun Gong practitioners to Nazi medical experimentation during the Holocaust.

Doctors Against Organ Harvesting was formed in the wake of a Canadian investigation first released last year.

Authored by former Liberal MP David Kilgour and Winnipeg human rights lawyer David Matas, the report claims there is a widespread and systematic policy in China of selling organs from living donors to a growing clientele of desperate patients.

Kilgour said Thursday it is clear Falun Gong members are being targeted over other ethnic groups and religions, as a part of a campaign to villainize their spiritual practice since it fell out of favour with the government in 2000.

The report’s conclusions were drawn from interviews with a handful of eyewitnesses from the medical side, recipients of organs harvested in China, official government pronouncements, statistics showing a sudden explosion in the number of transplants performed, marketing Web sites and undercover inquiries to hospital.

In one instance, an Asian patient recounted that after rifling through a list of potential donors, a military doctor departed and returned to the hospital several times, bringing back a total of eight different kidneys before finally settling on a match.

In another, a sick patient found out one day he needed a transplant and had an organ within 24 hours.

Web sites market transplants in China in five different languages and in some cases guarantee availability of a matching organ within two weeks. The average wait time for a kidney in Canada is 32.5 months, while in British Columbia it is 52.5 months.

In surreptitious phone calls to Chinese transplant hospitals by Mandarin-speaking investigators, medical staff admitted organs came from Falun Gong prisoners.

While he is sympathetic to the plight of ailing Canadians who wait years for a transplant and face the prospect of dying before a match comes along, Kilgour said patients and doctors cannot turn a blind eye.

“Medicine cannot be practised by killing innocent people like chickens,” he said.

Gerry Koffman, a Toronto general practitioner and member of Doctors Against Organ Harvesting, said there are about 100 confirmed cases of Canadian patients from Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver having transplants done in China.

original report from Leader-Post (Regina)
(hat tip: ChinaView)

I wrote the author of the China View Blog a couple times to gain further perspective on what we can do. He is busy but has been very helpful. His 2 pieces of advice on what to do were the following:

A. as an individual, for our safety reason, buy as less Chinese products as we can. The bottom line is do not make our own life difficult, if the Chinese product is the only choice.B. Urge/push the government/trade companies take action to boycott
until the situation is changed. Government action is the most effective way,
because for business companies profit is always their first choice and
they seldom really care about human rights.

To make it happen, we need to raise awareness and educate the officals,
NGOs, trade companies,etc, by make appointment/writing letter/email/fax,
and also the most important thing we are doing now, blogging.

I would like to add… If boycotting China gained enough buzz… like THE ONE campaign has, I do think it could be possible to effect the commerce world. If awareness was raised to the point that people were boycotting en masse and deciding to live with less in order to come against China’s human rights violations, some businesses would take the hint.

You may think, “this republican has fallen off her rocker” But realize that I serve Jesus Christ before any political party. And though Republicans have more the reputation of ruthless capitalists, and though I do believe capitalism is the less of evils in economic systems, ethics are not to be forsaken. We must always respect human life because God created it. Innocents must always be protected. Always.

PLEASE bookmark the China View Blog and stay up to date on the CONSTANT human rights violations by the Chinese government. We as a nation have got to stop turning a blind eye toward what they are doing.

Posted orginally on Mommy Zabs