Muslims don’t understand contraception: Erdogan

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has courted new controversy by speaking against contraception and urging women to ensure the country’s population growth.

"I will say it clearly... We need to increase the number of our descendants… And in this respect the first duty belongs to mothers," Erdogan said during a speech in Istanbul on Monday.

"People talk about birth control, about family planning. No Muslim family can understand and accept that,” the Turkish president stated.

Erdogan’s remarks are the latest in a series of statements on procreation and curtailing abortion practices that have provoked controversy among his critics.

In a speech marking the International Women’s Day on March, he said, “I know there will be some who will be annoyed, but for me a woman is above all a mother,” adding, “You cannot free women by destroying the notion of family.”

“One [child] means loneliness, two means rivalry, three means balance and four means abundance,” he had earlier said, urging women to have four children.

In 2014, he declared engagement in birth control efforts “treason” against the country, because such policies could risk “drying up” a whole generation.   

'Nonsensical, medieval statement'

Erdogan’s Monday statement was criticized by the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), with its deputy parliamentary leader, Ozgur Ozel, saying the president was “talking nonsense”.

“It is not up to the president, or other persons, to discuss decisions that should be made based on scientific criteria by scientists or decisions that relate to women’s bodies,” Ozel said.

A women’s civil liberties advocacy group, the Platform to Stop Violence Against Women, also censured the Turkish president’s remarks as “medieval”.

“You cannot usurp our right to contraception, nor our other rights with your declarations that come out of the Middle Ages,” the group said in a statement on Twitter, adding, “We will protect our rights.”

Erdogan and his wife Emine have five grandchildren from two of their children. His elder daughter, Esra, and her husband, Energy Minister Berat Albayrak, have three children, while Erdogan’s third child, Necmettin Bilal, and his wife, Reyyan Uzuner, have two children. The president’s eldest son, Ahmet Burak, has no children despite being married since 2001. His younger daughter, Sumeyye, married defense industrialist Selcuk Bayraktar earlier this month.

According to World Bank data, Turkey’s population has risen about 20 percent since 2003, when Erdogan was elected to his first of three terms as prime minister.  The country’s population currently stands at about 79.5 million. 

Since May 2015, Turkey has disbursed 450 million Turkish liras ($152.2 million) in government incentive payments to increase the country’s birth rate. 

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