Erdoğan Criticizes Birth Control

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attended a wedding ceremony in Istanbul, reiterating his call for families to have at least three children and claimed that birth control was a treason to wipe out the Turkish kin. 

Following his speech, he handed out the family certificate to the bridge. 

Previously, Erdoğan called for Turkish families to have at least three children on several occasions. 

Some of the highlights from Erdoğan’s speech are as follows:

“Marriage is a long journey. There are good days, bad days. Good days multiply as you share them, bad days turn into good when you have patience. There is an elderly man in Beypazarı district who has a recommendation: one child is strange, two children are opponents, three children have equilibrium, four children means prosperity, God knows the rest...

“In order to keep our nation strong and dynamic, we need young population. And we need an educated population. We are not going to neglect this. If we want to take our nation to the level of developped ones, this nation needs to be strong. There is a principle in economics, young means dynamic. They have done the treason of birth control in this country for years and attempted to wipe out our kin.” 

“This mentality will resume women murders” 

Upon President Erdoğan’s speech, women organizations reacted. 

While Istanbul Feminist Collective said that the speech was a direct intervention to women’s bodies, Republican People’s Party (CHP) Ankara deputy Aylin Nazlıaka made a statement, saying that “this mentality will resume women murders in Turkey”. 

Nazlıaka also reminded the rejection of CHP’s motion to Constitutional Court regarding the “medical necessity” criteria for abortions - which made the process harder in Turkey. (ÇT/BM)

* This article has been compiled by more than one article from bianet Turkish.