Law eases concerns for raising children

The National People's Congress Standing Committee passed a resolution on the amendment of the Population and Family Planning Law on Friday including the third child policy in the law.

According to the revision, it is the legal right of couples in the country to have three children, and the country should implement finance, tax, insurance, education, housing and employment measures to support families raising three children to ease the financial burden on them.

That it takes the top legislature less than one month to translate the central authorities' decision into law represents its active response to people's concerns.

It is good to see that the revision has removed the regulations on the social maintenance fee and other punitive rules that had served as legal foundations for grassroots family planning departments to fine couples breaking the family planning policies. That move has pulled the teeth out of the previously rigid and harsh family planning policies.

Moreover, the series of supporting measures the law requires governments of various levels to take to protect childbearing women's rights and ease the financial burden on families. Which will serve to make people rest assured that the authorities have changed their minds and are trying to encourage couples to have more children.

Now is the time for local governments, especially the family planning departments, to change their role from ticket writers to baby boom boosters by helping to materialize the support the law stipulates child-raising families should receive.

Only acting with an efficiency matching that of the lawmakers can the governments demonstrate their wholehearted support for the third child policy.

The revision of the Population and Family Planning Law has made people truly feel that the State is establishing a thorough system arrangement to reduce the burden on families raising children. Through the system design, the gradual adjustment and improvement of the childbirth policy is conducive to the long-term balanced development of the population.