It was during my adoption discussions with my wife that I first learned about China's one child policy. But after adopting two Chinese girls, also an unfortunate consequence of this policy, I was able to put a "face" to the problem. This year in our class we talked about the Christian vision of humanity: the fact that we are all created in the image of God (imago Dei) and how a misunderstanding of the human person can lead to a culture that is often contrary to human dignity.1 China's one-child policy is a prime example of what can happen when humans reduce other humans to faceless numbers. We see a government that has removed all sense of God from its structure and so, in the words of Blessed John Paul II, “He no longer regards life as a splendid gift from God” but “Life itself becomes a simple 'thing' , which man claims as his exclusive property, completely subject to this control and manipulation.”2 It is precisely this control and manipulation that has led to the one-child policy, more formally known as the family planning policy, in China. Initiated in 1980 by the Chinese Communist Party, this policy was created after Chairman Mao launched a campaign to encourage families to have more children, leading to birth rates of more than 4 children per family. During this period, a food shortage occurred resulting in the deaths of 30 million Chinese due to a man-made famine. Even though the birth rate had fallen below 3 children per family by 1980, a new group of Chinese leaders believed that forcibly limiting population growth would help the country become more prosperous, and from this idea of ​​limiting population growth population the one-child policy was born. says the policy limits most Chinese families to one child each. The consequences… halfway through the document… the horrific effect the one-child policy has had on the Chinese people and its devastation on basic human rights. But it is the unintended economic consequences of this policy that are now accelerating change. With so few children, China is aging rapidly. Its population over the age of 65 is growing sharply, and at one of the fastest rates in the world. The International Monetary Fund warns that China's workforce will soon fall into "precipitous decline." A labor shortage of nearly 140 million workers is projected by early 2030, with “far-reaching implications.”6 Reforming or eliminating this abhorrent social policy based on humanitarian grounds would be a wonderful step forward for the Communist Party of China, but even if the change was based on economic reasons at least it is a movement in the right direction. We all know that God can write straight even with our crooked lines.