, Columnist
China's Retro Rules for In Vitro
The economic reality for single women has changed. The law hasn't.
Off limits for single women.
Photographer: Bryan ChanThis article is for subscribers only.
In China, as elsewhere, celebrity gossip and public policy tend not to intersect. The boundary dissolved last week, however, when Xu Jinglei, a popular (and single) 41-year-old actress, explained in an interview that she had traveled to the U.S. in 2013 to freeze nine of her eggs. Although she could have had that procedure performed in China, she wouldn't have been permitted, as long as she wasn't married, to have those eggs implanted for a pregnancy.
Xu's trip abroad has sparked a vigorous debate at home about whether China's restrictions on in vitro fertilization -- and the social values informing them -- have failed to keep pace with the country's economic advances.