Gynos to Erdoğan: ‘If you don’t want abortions, you need birth control’

ISTANBUL

DHA Photo

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has expressed his opposition both to birth control, which he declared last week as “treason,” and abortions, an act that he has famously branded a “massacre,” in a similar vein to the killings of 34 villagers in Roboski three years ago.

But a group of gynecologists said in an open letter that Erdoğan would rather have to think twice, stressing that birth control was fundamental to prevent unwanted pregnancies, hence coping with abortions.

“Mr. President, who has described abortion as murder, should guess that birth control methods have to be used to prevent abortions. For this reason, it is impossible to understand why he perceives birth control as a form of betrayal,” read the letter published by Cansun Demir, a practician head of the Turkish Association of Gynecologists and Obstetricians.

“We believe that in a free and democratic country, it is up to the individuals and not politicians to decide their birth control methods. Therefore, we refuse the word treason,” the letter said.

Erdoğan, who sought to instill the population with the mission of having more than three offspring per family, had decided to tackle the contraception issue during a wedding of the son of a businessman last week.

He advised the newlyweds that using contraceptive methods was a betrayal to Turkey’s ambition to make itself a nation with a blossoming demography and an attempt to “dry up the next generations.”

The gynecologists also stressed in the letter that studies on reproductive health date back to ancient times – and it is likely to have sources written even in Ottoman.

“People should do what they know best. As specialists of women diseases and birth, we are practicing medicine,” the letter said.