‍During the ongoing Two Dessions, a proposal by Huang Xihua, a deputy to the National People's Congress has drawn attention, triggering heat debate online, which suggests that out-of-wedlock births should not be discriminated against in terms of the mothers receiving social benefits, such as the household registration document. Some support its progress in protecting women's rights, others argue the rule change may challenge traditional family values, or even encourage more cheating husbands to have children outside their marriage.

In fact, under Chinese law, unmarried women have the right to give birth, and children born out of wedlock are guaranteed the same rights as other children. The State Council issued a policy in 2016 to ensure that such children could apply for hukou, or household registration, under the name of their father or mother.

However, enforcement of such laws is weak at the provincial level due to the legacy of the one-child policy. Most provinces in China still fine unmarried mothers for giving birth. Of the 23 provinces in China that have policies on children born of wedlock, 20 still fine unmarried mothers for giving birth, according to financial news outlet Caixin.

Professor Li Jinzhao from Beijing Foreign Studies University supports the proposal. “Chinese women are demanding more, women are expecting to have a separation between marriage and birth rights,” she said.

She discovered that on this proposal, over 90 percent of people polled agreed that women, no matter married or unmarried, should have fertility rights. She pointed out that the top priority of the Chinese government today is to keep its population at 1.4 billion by the year 2020, so she believed the general public and the government are sharing the consensus and same will of trying all different means to reach that threshold.

Li also mentioned LGBT's rights, saying this minority group wants to have equal rights of marriage and giving birth.

Flora Liu, CEO of Joyview Education, strongly opposed the heavy fine that unmarried mothers in some parts of China should pay for giving birth, she believed every woman has her own fertility rights. “This is the fundamental human rights”, she said.

She also pointed out the changes in Chinese women during the past decades, who used to be dependent on men financially, now women are more independent, some want to have a child by egg-freezing and IVF (in-vitro fertilization) technology, which really challenges the “patriarchy society.”

She finally mentioned lots of female celebrities abroad who chose not to marry. Instead, they freeze their eggs because they want to have their own children in the future using technological assistance. Although egg-freezing is illegal in China, she firmly believed this technology will be a trend in China in the future.

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