Ma Weihua, a Chinese drug smuggler who was forced to have an abortion...

Ma Weihua, a Chinese drug smuggler who was forced to have an abortion, was spared the death penalty after an unprecedented campaign against the abuse of state power.
The case caused an outcry when lawyers for Ma, 29, managed to halt her trial by proving that police in the city of Lanzhou had signed a form authorising doctors to terminate Ma's pregnancy against her will.
Under article 49 of the Chinese criminal code, pregnant women may not be executed and some detectives claim that drug dealers use such women as couriers for this very reason.
The abortion took place even before the charges against Ma were heard in court. At her retrial, a court in Lanzhou found her guilty of transporting 1.6kg of heroin and sentenced her to life imprisonment.
The image of a pregnant woman being dragged to the operating table by uniformed police officers so that her baby could be aborted outraged public opinion in China, where the reputation of the Public Security Bureau (PSB), held responsible, was already poor.