Not a married heterosexual woman? You might not get certain reproductive care in China
Rules around the country cut out unmarried women and LGBT people of maternity benefits, even as China's leaders try to get citizens to have more babies to reverse the declining birthrate.
BEIJING â The first thing Teresa Xu noticed at a maternity hospital in China's capital was how many couples and relatives were there.
"It was a sea of people, mostly women, accompanied by their worried husbands and parents," Xu says.
Like many of the women, Xu was there to freeze her ovarian eggs. But unlike the others, she was unmarried and went alone â which didn't go over well.
"The doctor dismissively asked me, 'Why not get a marriage license first?' " Xu recalls. It was in November 2018, when she was 30 years old.
The public
