WASHINGTON (BP) -- Recent reports of women undergoing late-term abortions against their will are "only the tip of the iceberg" of the forced procedures that occur daily in China, a Christian advocate for human rights has told a congressional panel.

Feng's "tragedy is repeated hundreds and thousands of times each day in China."-- Bob Fu

The new accounts of forced abortions have brought China's coercive, "one-child," population control policy to the world's attention in a way that is possibly unprecedented since it was instituted in 1979.

The story and photo of Feng Jianmei and her forcibly aborted daughter gained global attention online in June. Family planning officials kidnapped Feng, who was seven months pregnant but had no birth permit, June 2 in Shaanxi province and aborted her child when her family did not pay a fine. Authorities placed the body of her dead daughter next to her in bed. A Chinese dissident posted an account, plus a photo of the devastated mother and her dead daughter, online, and it went viral when the news broke June 12 in the West, according to testimony at a July 9 hearing before a House of Representatives subcommittee.

In written testimony for the panel, Bob Fu of the ChinaAid Association said Feng's "tragedy is repeated hundreds and thousands of times each day in China."

China's population control program generally limits couples in urban areas to one child and those in rural areas to two, if the first is a girl. Parents in cities may have second babies if the husband and wife are both only children. The policy has resulted in many reports of authorities carrying out forced abortions and sterilizations, as well as accounts of infanticide. It has helped produce a dramatic gender imbalance because of the Chinese preference for sons.

The Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights received accounts by Fu and Reggie Littlejohn, president of Women's Rights Without Frontiers, regarding other recently reported coerced abortions:

-- Hu Jia's baby was forcibly aborted at nearly eight months June 19 in Hubei province, according to a major Chinese newspaper, the Southern Metropolis Daily. Read More