Washington Post Highlights Forced Abortion, Genocide in China

China’s regime reportedly has forced some 1.5 million people into reeducation camps and subjected others to forced abortions, sterilizations, and organ harvesting.

This week the editorial board at The Washington Post penned an op-ed column highlighting forced abortions and sterilizations in China — which the editors say ultimately amounts to genocide.

China’s communist party is targeting Uighur Muslims and other minority groups who live in the country’s western Xinjiang province.

The editorial board writes,

[N]ew evidence shows that China is systematically using pregnancy checks, forced intrauterine devices, sterilization and even abortion to reduce the population of Uighurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang. . . .

The measures fall within the definition of genocide in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which includes “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”

Besides forced abortions and sterilizations, an independent tribunal found credible evidence last year that China also forcibly harvests organs from Uighurs and others.

China has forced Uighur Muslims into “reeducation camps” that NPR recently noted are “probably the largest incarceration of an ethnoreligious minority since the Holocaust.”

COVID-19 has taught us a painful lesson about how what happens on the other side of the planet can affect lives all over the world. We cannot afford to sit idly by while China’s communist regime commits these sorts of atrocities.

You can read the Washington Post’s entire editorial column here.

State Lottery Keeps Rolling Out New Scratch-Off Tickets

On Tuesday the Arkansas Lottery rolled out five new scratch-off tickets that sell for anywhere from $2 to $10 each.

Unlike some state lotteries, the Arkansas Lottery relies very heavily on scratch-off tickets for revenue.

As we have written before, scratch-off tickets are controversial, because they are tied to problem gambling and gambling addiction.

A 2015 study in Canada described them as “paper slot machines.” 

A 2018 study published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions found a link between how often a person played scratch-off tickets and the severity of a person’s gambling problem.

Expensive scratch-off tickets — like the Lottery’s new $10 ticket — are particularly controversial, because they prey on the poor and desperate by offering long odds on big jackpots.

People who spend $10 on a single scratch-off ticket lose their money two-thirds of the time.

The Arkansas Lottery has a history of rolling out new lottery games more regularly than any other state lottery we know.

From the start, the state-run lottery has used a steady stream of new games and expensive marketing campaigns to bolster sales and entice people to buy lottery tickets.

As long as the Arkansas Lottery continues to operate this way, it will keep preying on the poor and desperate, and the Lottery’s scholarship funding will remain low.