Christian Bale honors Chen Guangcheng for exposing forced abortions

Chen Guangcheng is the blind Chinese human rights activist -- and self-taught lawyer -- who spoke out on behalf of Chinese women and families who were victimized by brutal campaigns of forced abortions and sterilizations. For his efforts he was unjustly imprisoned and tortured for years, and later transferred to house arrest, where he and his family were still beaten. This spring he dramatically escaped to the U.S. embassy. He is now living in the United States.

Actor Christian Bale sought to visit Chen in December of 2011 but was literally roughed up by thugs guarding the house in which Chen was imprisoned. "What I really wanted to do was shake the man's hand and say 'thank you,' and tell him what an inspiration he is," Bale explained at the time.

Yesterday Bale presented Chen with an award at a human rights gala. He said:

He [Chen] had exposed a program of forced abortion and sterilization in Shandong. A program of forced abortion means that women are being dragged from their homes against their will. They are being forced to have abortions, sometimes late-term -- imagine that -- with some women reportedly dying in the process. Now this is true horror. And in this insane world, this man, Chen, who was helping these women -- who was living by some of the most simple, brave and universally admired values -- values that we teach our children every day, and helping our fellow man -- for this, this man was imprisoned and beaten for over four years.

The pro-life group Women's Rights Without Frontiers covers the event here.