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Rating: 
Summary: Famine, starvation and extreme measures
Review: I never knew about the famine in China in the late 50s, early 60s, but reading the incredibly extreme measures the government was/ is? willing to go through wasn't in some way influenced by those horrible events.
Yes, the method of enforcing the one child only policy are brutal and heart-wrenching, but I cannot help thinking this decision was not taken lightly just as another means to oppress people.
The very horror and brutality makes me wonder what horrible forecasting, what dire conditions were predicted to make those in power feel the need to create the policy and then to enforce it so strongly. If up to 40 million died in the first famine, what numbers were foreseen for the next one? I have to think it must have been apocalytic in suffering predicted that forced abortions and even infanticide were deemed the lesser evil.
Rating:
Summary: Mothers a World Apart
Review: I've read "A Mother's Ordeal" twice now and it's one of the most compelling books I've ever read. I was born just weeks apart from Chi An, the main character in this true story, but our lives have been lived worlds apart. As she vividly describes her childhood in Communist China, her poverty and famine and cruel government policies, I couldn't help but trace my own life events and be painfully aware of the blessings I've received in comparison to her life lived under vise-grip pressures of a government not concerned for its own people. As I read about her eating pancakes made of tree leaves and sleeping through school in the afternoons because of her weakness from hunger, I pictured myself going door-to-door to collect money in milk cartons for the "starving children in China" and now I've been introduced to the first-person story of one of those children. This book helped me to put a very human face on the stories I've read in the newspaper and studied in history classes. I am a deeply pro-life woman, and yet I can fully empathize with women in China who are forced to submit to abortion because of the relentless, crushing pressure experienced on a daily basis by the women of that country by a government committed to a one-child policy at any cost, which is so graphically explained in this book. Reading it makes me ask myself how strong I could be under the same circumstances. You will not be able to forget her descriptions of her C-section done without anesthesia because of her desire to avoid the dangers the anesthesia posed to her unborn son, and to admire her courage and the deep mother-love that drove her to do so. And even when she becomes a birth control worker who imprisons and berates and forcibly aborts other women (even her best friend, in labor at full term), you cannot see this woman as a monster herself, but as part of a monstrous system that must be exposed and changed. This book may change your understanding of abortion forever and make you more committed than ever to ending its destructive power in a very pro-woman way. It will most surely challenge excuses for UNFPA funding of these policies in China. Thank you Chi An, for telling your story!
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating, Important, Suspicious
Review: The book is indeed hard to put down. The major problem with it is that the way Mosher approaches the narrative seriously calls into question the book's veracity. It's all too tidy, all too perfect. And Mosher is clearly politically motivated and alligned with the pro-Life movement. Still, the book will lend the reader much important insight into modern China. Something seriously wrong has been going on there, and America has not done anything about it. Implicitly, it especially indicts the "pro-choice" movement for failing to oppose the cruel insanity of China's pro-abortion, anti-choice policies. It's one part of a puzzle the world needs to study, in order to come to the realization that the Chinese government (the government -- NOT the people. There is a big difference.) must be opposed bravely. Quit the pussyfooting. The Communist Government of China is the biggest threat to human rights and stability today, and must be recognized as such.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing and eye opening
Review: The story of Chi An's life, from her uncelebrated birth (after all, she was JUST a girl), to her early school days interrupted by the search for steel to feed Mao's plan to make a Great Leap Forward, to her simple meals of tree-leaf pancakes during the days of the Great Famine, to her heart-felt allegiance to and then disillusionment with the Cultural Revolution purge, to her enforcement of and then torture under the family-planning policies, provides a fascinating context in which to study the political heartbeat of a country little understood. This poignant account could cause you to hate China. It may make you weep with compassion, as I did. But finally, it will help you to understand. See China through Chinese eyes.
Rating:
Summary: enlightening
Review: This account of a woman in China, including the events of her life from her birth in 1948 to the time she became a permanent resident of a free country in the 1980s, is full of high interest for any one who wants to know what it is like to live in China in her time, and I presume today. It is indeed a chilling account of the way things are in a country which accords to abortion a higher position than life, and the accounts of the way abortions are performed I don't suppose would be what pro-abotionists would like to read about. But I found the book educational and eye-opening.
Rating:
Summary: Things I didn't know
Review: This book illustrates how dangerous and insane the communist regime oppressing China is. This book was exciting and hard to put down. An excellent addition to your personal library. Buy it! If coerced abortions is where "reproductive rights" is leading, I want no part of it. Children are blessings from God and I want all he will give me. God is smarter than I for choosing my family size, and definitely smarter than politicians or China's deceived and manipulated population control thugs.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most important books of the 90's
Review: This book is a real sleeper, and will be overlooked because it is non-fiction. Indeed, it reads like a novel and should be on the required reading list for all women who have ever thought about having children or about not having them. With great opportunities for introspection, it made me, the mother of four healthy, accomplished, adult children, look back on my life, my choices, and the freedoms of our American lifestyle, and rejoice.
Rating:
Summary: A must-read for all US citizens.
Review: This is an excellent and very powerful book. The tale that unfolds is not only frightening but extremely enlightening. Before reading this book I solidly and proudly stood on the side of society that values all human life. Not only does Chi An's story deepen that conviction, but I now find that I value my right to choose life. I can't even begin to imagine the fear that the women in this story had to face and the desperate measures taken to try and save their unborn (and, sickeningly, in some cases, born) children. It also gives fascinating insight into life during the Cultural Revolution. This book was a real eye opener and a definite page-turner. I highly recommend it.
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