Chinese Woman Gives Birth To Septuplets (7 Babies), Has One Week To Choose

Shanghai, China—In the second such documented case ever, Jinan Huang, a 33-year-old Shanghai woman, gave birth to septuplets Monday.Jinan, who is in stable condition following the 31-hour delivery, has been given one week by government officials to decide which child she will keep.

My husband and I have not decided for certain,” said Jinan, speaking to reporters from her hospital bed shortly after the miraculous birth. “But we are very much considering keeping the second-born boy. He is the heaviest and, therefore, the most likely to survive and tend to us in our old age.”

“We definitely do not want either of the two girls,” Jinan’s husband Lin said. “Of that much we are certain.”

The six children not selected will, in accordance with Chinese multiple-birth law, be thrown off a mountaintop.

Since China’s one-child-per-family law went into effect in 1983, more than 65 million multiple-birth babies have been put to death in the country.

Jinan, who said she had tried to have a baby for years, vehemently denied taking fertility drugs, the use of which is punishable by death in China. “I do not know how this happened,” she said. “To my fellow citizens and our nation’s leaders, I wish to apologize for this shameful and irresponsible multiple birth.”