"We need a male to continue the family line." Except that male needs a female to continue your family line...

That woman crying about her 9 month forced abortion was honestly heartbreaking.

"Single men sit around with nothing to do." The fact they imply that these guys have nothing to do bc they are single is amazing.

My childhood best friend was abandoned when her brother was born. Now she's captain of her highschool's cheer squad, has had straight A's her whole life, gets an adrenaline rush from organizing her backpack, and is planning on running for office one day. China lost a DAMN brilliant girl to that policy.

I think we can all agree that buying a sex doll when you are pretty sure there is no chance you will find a wife is a far better option then paying for a kidnaped bride.

PLEASE interview Wang Zheng, one of China’s foremost feminist thinkers. In her own words, “Female infanticide was not a concern of the government. But men cannot find wife, that is a concern for the government.”

Bless that man for making sex dolls honestly. Who knows how many girls has been saved from human trafficking thanks to him.

Thanks for mentioning the human trafficking business. That was one of my biggest fears growing up as a girl in Vietnam.

I was adopted because of the one child policy. Living a great life in Canada.

Imagine having to take care of 4 grandparents and 2 parents, but then the government also wants you to raise 2 children at the same time.

This adds a lot of context to a documentary I saw about the immense pressure and shame poured on women who chose not to marry.

I remember a news story that had a lot of people in Australia very upset in the late 90s- a Chinese woman came here as a refugee because she was pregnant with her second child. She pleaded with the Australian government to just wait to send her back until after she’d had the kid (which shouldn’t have been a probable, we don’t have birthright citizenship here), but they didn’t. They sent her back at 8 months pregnant. And what she feared would happen is exactly what happened. Australians were furious! One more month was all she asked for. She knew it would mean her child would likely be taken from her and put in an orphanage- but that was better than a forced abortion at 8 months. Also, for those who can’t seem to wrap their heads around pro-CHOICE. The hint is in the last word. It’s about respecting the bodily autonomy and choices of the person who has to carry the pregnancy. It’s really not hard to understand. No, it doesn’t mean pro-abortion. It means exactly what the label says. Pro-choice.

As a child adopted from china because of this policy I'm thrilled to see that John brought this issue up.

My dad had a colleague whose LITERAL LEGAL NAME was “fined 50,000” so. Yeah.

China: We introduced a policy that made it impossible for 34 million men to have a traditional family, even if they wanted to. Also China: We have strict censorship rules in place to prevent the display of homosexuality on TV, because to show it will endanger traditional family structures. We simply cannot take that risk. We love traditional family structures!

The Rat is taking the pizza to his teenage ninja turtle friends

"21k Chen" should start rapping. He has already got one hell of a name for it.

Chinese military officials creating a society with an excess of males with nothing to live for isn’t an error in foresight, it’s a recruiting tactic.

for anyone wanting an update: in may 2021 the 7th national census was released in china, showing that the birthrate was still declining. the chinese government implemented a 3 child policy in june 2021. in august 2021 they stripped out all of the penalties for more children, so functionally there is no hard cap on the number of children.

My grandma actually paid for me to NOT be aborted, which is really sad when you think about it as I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for a few thousand dollars.

21:42 "Family planning officers conduct pregnancy tests every 3 months" How dystopian is that?

I guess I'm the guy who's lucky enough to have a sister when this policy was still being carried on. I don't have such a tragic story, my father was an officer, and he managed to keep my sister using his influence. Now my sister is 13-years-old and we had a wonderful childhood together, when I was in high school, she used to hang around outside my classroom and rush to hug me when I came out. I can't imagine what if I was brought up alone, it was my sister who taught me the value of brotherhood and the responsibility of being an elder brother, and I guess the most of our generation will never have a chance to experience all that, what a shame.

"Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist."

I like how John can make "Happy 70th" sound like "F You".

I'm a one child policy kid, I was born in 1993, and I wasn't my mom's first pregnancy. She was pregnant in 1987 with a girl, under the pressure from family, friends and the local law enforcements, she had an abortion because of a particularly horrible discrimination against women/female gender in Chinese traditional culture (I was raised in a fairly conservative region in China). She endured a few years of abusive behavior from my father after her abortion, and was pregnant with me in 1992. To this day I have no idea how she managed to endure all those, all by herself, for so many years, while still being the loving mother she is. She is the strongest person I have ever known, she is my hero. My mom's life could have been happier and I could have had a sister, if this policy wasn't there. There are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of similar stories during the 80s and 90s in China. The government implemented this policy at the cost of the happiness of an entire generation. The policy itself was a short sighted mistake from the very beginning. It had a short term benefit, fertility rate dropped drastically in the 80s and population growth was controlled. But the long term harm it introduced to gender equality, fertility rate, wellfare, education, medical care and all other aspects of people's lives are immeasurable, not to mention the discrimination against women was amplified by this policy (look up suicide rate of Chinese women and the amount of abandoned baby girls in rural China, you'll see). In a few years the population will start to drop, and in a few decades the majority of Chinese population will be elderly people. Disproportionate population structure (both in gender and in age) will be a major difficulty, maybe even the downfall of contemporary China. Not to mention it's incredibly inhumane. Human lives are not numbers in some official statistics, as you can see, this policy has already caused and will continue to cause suffering amongst Chinese people. Heavy topic, thank you for reading this and have a good day :)

“My money is on Diva Cup because it sounds like what Mariah Carey demands all her beverages come in” Thank you John’s female writers for giving us that comedy gold.

Maggie O'Neil was an adoptee in Canada during the One Child Policy and she just won gold in 100m butterfly in Tokyo beating a Chinese, power to her and congrats and keep on winning She also won a bronze and silver in freestyle relay.

Back in the 80s during a marijuana enhanced discussion, I commented that due to China's one child policy and their preference for male children, some day there were going to be a lot of lonely Chinese men. My friends laughed at me and passed me the bong. 🤪

Pro choice has it in its name Choice A forced abortion is simply... Clearly not a choice...?

I had a friend in China who was a second child and she felt so much pressure to be perfect because she also cost 30k. It’s some crazy shit.

I was born in 1995. I have an older brother who was born in 1994. My mother had a miscarriage before I was born. When she found out that she was pregnant again, I was 3 months old. Fortunately, I was retained. When I was 8 years old, I applied for Chinese household registration in order to go to school. My nickname is chaochao, which means I’m superborn.

As a 35 year old adult with three adorable nephews... my ideal dinner guest IS someone who insists their food be dinosaur shaped! THAT SOUNDS AWESOME! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, JOHN?! YOU'RE A MONSTER!

John Oliver is really angry underneath that smile, and so am I.

My heart broke for the woman who had to go through forced abortion at her 9th month.

My heart goes to all the lucky Chinese girls that were adopted (many SMUGGLED out of China, think of it: child SMUGGLERS are the good guys here!!!) by other parents and found caring families outside of China.

I adopted my daughter in China in 2003. She had been abandoned by the side of a highway in Southern China in June. I honestly believe she was left to die. Well, she’s quite the survivor. 18 years old now, she has multiple special needs, so she is in a residential program and doing very well. When I reached out to her adoption coordinator in China to ask some health related questions, I was cut off. I’ve never been able to get any information.

I was a byproduct of the One-Child Policy. I was the 2nd child and I was abandoned and put in an orphanage. I was adopted and brought to America. I was very lucky to be given a chance to live a better life here in America, where I am a part of a loving family and where I have the opportunity to pursue my higher education. I am currently attending university in hopes to receive my PhD in biomedical engineering. So although I lost my biological family, I was given a second chance at life by my adoptive family.

"My female writers told me that one of those things I just said isn't real. And they refuse to tell me which one." 😂

The Chinese Communist government is going to face the curse of that poor mother, who was forced to abort at 9 months. This was so heartening. How cruel could those authorities be!

I taught English in China. It was so difficult teaching them the concept of brothers and sisters. Every student was an only child. Also, 90% of my students were obese. The little Emperor thing is true too. I had parents interrupt my lesson because they wanted to give their kid a drink of warm water.

Say what you like, I think a name like 20,000 Chen is just begging for a record label to pick him up.

Thank you for shedding light on this subject. I was born during this policy's strictest implementation. My birth mother anonymously dropped me off at a police station when I was around one month old, risking her life so that I could live. I was then taken to an orphanage and was extremely fortunate to be adopted by a loving American single mom. My mom said that all of the babies in my province placed in orphanages that were born the previous year died, most likely due to a lack of resources. Many of my Chinese international classmates are male w/o siblings. I read "A Mother's Ordeal" by Steven Mosher and consider it an eye-opening and sobering account of the policy's consequences.

I live in Finland and I have a friend who's adopted from China and who was born during the one child policy. She's probably lucky to even be alive.

I felt that arrow through my heart. 9 mouth abortion is horrific and I truly hope you find peace. The sadness is overwhelming just hearing what you went through.

Oh damn, that poor woman at 11:00 breaks my heart.... my mom was in the exact same situation as she was in - my father already had a child from his first marriage. My mom was already 37 years old, and 6 months pregnant, and she was told by government officers that she couldn't have me. They threatened to fire my father from work. My mom shot back that she'll just divorce him before they do anything of that sort. She was pissed, and she was determined to have me. She went all tiger mum on them, accusing them of inhumanity and hurling insults, countering every threat they made. (At one point she insinuated that she'll just ask for asylum from the U.S ) It wasn't very diplomatic, and normally it wouldn't have ended well, but miraculously, they backed down, (I mean I guess my mom can be really scary, and perhaps they did have an inkling of a conscience) and I was born with a proper citizenship and stuff, without fines. I always just saw this as a really touching story about my mother's love for me. And I knew I was fortunate. But I also thought that 'well, I was technically her first child, plus, it was 2001, perhaps policy was less violently enforced, so... maybe that's why they backed down. ' Now I realise how lucky I really was, because I could have easily been that child, and my amazing mother would have to suffer just as that poor lady did. I don't know how necessary the one child policy really was... Maybe it was for the greater good, maybe it was just another evil policy of the very-bad-at-adjusting-to-reality and rather amoral communist government. Either way, let's just take a moment to acknowledge the human tragedies that it caused. Because people are not statistics, and the trauma never really goes away. (And seriously, go hug your mom/dad and tell them you love them) (And since this is a rather depressing topic - I love y'all too, strangers of the internet, hope you have a good day ahead)

My sister in law's family came from China when she was 20, her parents had 4 kids, 3 daughters and a son. I asked her if she and her sisters (all of them are very pretty) were higher valued because the impending gender gap. She told me they weren't valued at all compared to their little brother. All 3 daughters went on to get college degrees (My sister in law got a PhD) and the son became a car salesman, and he still is held in higher regard than his sisters. There is just a huge difference cultures.

"History is memes now." I get most of my world news from reddit so I'm not against this idea.

I’d obviously rather someone buy a sex doll than force a kidnapped woman to marry them, but the fact that men would consider either of those a replacement for a wife is very concerning and says a LOT about how they see women. If the reason they wanted to get married was because they wanted a mutually loving relationship with someone they actually like and care about as an individual, they wouldn’t look towards sex dolls or human trafficking as a substitute.

"Donald Duck pulls out the key to...family planning? from his bag" Man, this early draft of Kingdom Hearts was weird.

I read somewhere that having a large population of males with no prospect of getting a partner is a perfect growing ground for extremism.

If they want more children to be born, would it not be easier to let people have 3 children than to try to force people to have at least two?

Imagine having a baby with a knob on his head tell you you violated the law lmao

John Oliver coincidentally being a character in a chinese propaganda video has made my day

As a girl adopted from China due to the one child policy my heart breaks and I imagine my birth mother so much in the woman crying at 11:00. Thanks for bringing attention to this, especially because: - I think it's an issue that used to be a hot topic but people have sort of forgotten about EVEN THOUGH IT'S STILL A THING - Since the one child policy is old news, it reminds us that we should not stop being outraged and accept this as normal, especially in one of the largest and most powerful countries on earth

It genuinely feels weird to watch this with an audience right now

I take offense to this. If I could have all my food dinosaur-shaped, I 100% would.

John's female writers ribbing him and letting him go on air with plausibly half-serious, incomplete information for the sake of a joke is the kind of hilarity I am here for.

"The even loneliester number". God, that's the best non-word I've heard in a while.

So happy I yeeted out of there due to being adopted.

John, I feel you might also want to talk about China imposing heavy fans on women who have children before getting married, which is totally absurb

The Pizza-rat is called Splinter, John.

As an Indian, I can say that Infanticide, sex-selective abortions and Child Marriage were common issues here. Thankfully these horrible practices have almost ended thanks to the tireless efforts of several activists and the Government.

Aww... I was about to look up the "extra absorbent toilet paper" until it was mentioned that one of those things isn't real.

He is smiling but you can feel his rage in the closing argument.

The one time HBO puts their foot down is when John wanted to make a giant 70 out of headless silicone corpses.

One child policy would have made sense if they decreased the population in order to make everyone live together in one place and turned the remaining area into forest, but this one didn't do either of those. Humans lost, pandas lost, all wild animals lost, bats lost.

I agree with John. The whole point of being pro-choice is being able to chose to have an abortion

"Ultra Absorbent Period Toliet Paper" Dude shut up and take my money I would love that stuff.

15:04 "Choosing the right chat up line on the first date..." *shows a line that translates to "Why?"*

John Oliver is a better more reliable news source than half the 'serious' news sources around * and hes super funny

Whose here after China went to a three child policy?

I realllyyyyy wish they would have covered adoption because I’m also a direct effect from the Chinese policy. I was adopted in 1995 and my orphanage was only girls. And I know their are a lot of chinese adoption groups over here in the states. Wish he would have covered that too

I spent a month in China, and remember speaking to a local at some length about the policy and its effects. Interestingly, he was saying that although he could now have 2 kids (already had 1) he didnt intend to for one major reason. Apparently in many Chinese cities there is a massive housing shortage - he has a home he can fit 3 people in, getting one with room for 4 would be waaay more than he could ever afford. So he and according to him many of the people he knows are just sticking with 1 child anyway

“I could be wrong.”-you are, John. You are.

I recall a movie where the guy dated his phone. That is somehow less pathetic than the dolls simply because the phone had an AI that could at least have simple conversations. Now my childhood of not having any friends besides the ones I raised while playing my Pokemon and Digimon games feels slightly less pathetic because I grew to develop the skills to make actual friends.

I’m actually a product of the one-child policy. I was adopted as a baby from China by my American parents.

Before the "one child policy" there was actually a “Russian Mother policy” at the beginning of the 50's when China and Russia were still allies. The government wanted all Chinese parents to follow the footsteps of the Russian Mothers that have 7-8 children on average. Mostly because the governement was gearing up for another foreign invasion, which never came. That was the reason for why the population got out of control in the first place.

Imagine getting an abortion for a female baby so your boy will carry on your name, but then he tries getting a girl with magic. Joking aside this issue is the saddest one I've heard lately, and it's been a not great year has it

This just made me value democratic governments even more!

as the one child from the one child policy. I can say this with confidence that Oliver didn't hit it hard enough. The policy had caused so much suffering on the personal level, community and as a country

"we need more children" "but we're going to punish people who have a third"

The number of Chinese kids driving Lamborghini Urus’, Ferraris, Range Rovers and built like absolute units was amazing to witness during my graduation.

Ok this has been my guilty pleasure let's hope my internet doesn't get cancelled the next month.

the mother crying over the loss of her unborn child is heartbreaking...

Wait wait wait did he say that sad lady had a forced abortion AT NINE MONTHS?

A more accurate name would be “One Boy Policy”, not “One Child Policy”.

This is the best show! Funny and informative.

Lesson to learn here: one should be really careful about unintended consequences when trying to engineer society and bend the reality to some ideologically desired outcome.

I just have a quick request for the Last Week Tonight Channel: Can you guys post your sources in the video description, for further reading?

John Oliver- you are simply the best. I love your show.

I love John Oliver. Cracks me up every time!

Aunt Lydia “the workers are grateful for my concern”.... handsmaid tale 💯

"what you fill a cabinet with when you run out of human needs"😄 Brilliant. Just, brilliant.

“My money’s on diva cup” Lmao….but honestly fair😂

Yeah, a socal attitude that allowed femicide is exactly the kind that would allow for trafficking

Pro-lifers think that every child should be allowed to be born and live. Pro-choicers think having a child should be the parents' choice. No matter where you stand on this issue, I'm sure we can agree that forcing someone to get an abortion against their will is horrible.

That magic trick guy now will be like I’m on a John Oliver episode, and use that to woo girls.

Jon oliver❤️thank you during corona virus keep the laughs coming

And now it's a three child Policy

Take a shot for every time John says "The point is." I'm already dead.