China Sterilizes 5,500 Mentally Retarded
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BEIJING — China’s first province to approve a mandatory sterilization law for the mentally retarded has performed 5,500 operations in the 14 months since the law took effect.
Officials in the northwestern province of Gansu said their goal is to sterilize most of Gansu’s 260,000 mentally retarded by the end of next year, the People’s Daily said Sunday.
Arid, remote Gansu, one of China’s poorest regions, has several large concentrations of mentally and physically handicapped people, due in part to inbreeding in isolated villages.
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