Dodson Response--Chapter 9

One intriguing point Dodson makes about China's population problem is that China's overpopulation is the ultimate problem.  In the opening of this chapter Dodson writes that, "parents who have a daughter as their first child may try again for a second child after two years without penalty."  It seems quite stricken to place a limit on the amount of children parents can have.  What is the penalty?  Dodson introduces this penalty as the one-child policy, in which parents can only give birth to one child.  The one-child policy intrigued me because I didn't know about China's ever increasing population that exceeded nearly five times the number of people in America.  Personally, China is crowded and filled with billions of people but I don't agree with the government's one child policy.  I know that overpopulation is a major problem in China and that it's hard to keep under control, but aborting children doesn't seem morally correct.  I feel like the central government made a hasty decision enforcing this policy because not only is it still crowded in China, it also affects single children's lives.  Dodson states that, " Sometimes the boy or girl would be as young as eight years old when he or she was betrothed by their parents.  That meant that a great many couples had little passion in their relationship to begin with, let alone common interests beyond parenting children," (186).  I think the pressures of children getting married were unbearable and scornful.  To my surprising, the population policy in the United States is better oriented by the government.  If anything, parents with a lot of children are supported with good health care coverage, insurance benefits, and welfare than China's support.  For that reason, I don't consider China having a policy relative to the United State's population policy, however, if the U.S. was overpopulated like China, I think they would consider one of China's modern trends of decreasing birth rates.