Government says clampdown is aimed at improving women’s reproductive health, but it comes amid anxiety about the nation’s falling birth rate

China has already enacted strict measures aimed at preventing sex-selective abortions, and health authorities also warned in 2018 that the use of abortion to end unwanted pregnancies was harmful to women’s bodies and risked causing infertility.

The state council said the new guidelines, issued on Monday, would aim to improve women’s overall access to pre-pregnancy healthcare services.