Health minister calls birth control ‘primitive’ but no work being done by office

Umut Erdem – ANKARA

Birth control is “primitive,” Turkish Health Minister Recep Akdağ has said, while adding that his ministry was not conducting any work regarding contraception or abortion.

Responding to a parliamentary inquiry posed by opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Meral Danış Beştaş, Akdağ quoted President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s remarks on the role of women as mothers while declaring that the ministry was not conducting any work “that is as primitive as ‘birth control.’” 

Akdağ said there was no new legal regulation on the way regarding abortion.

He however said the ministry was continuing to provide services, as part of the concept of “modern reproduction health.” 

Referring to an analogy by Erdoğan about women and gold, in which the president likened women to gold, Akdağ said, “Stripping [gold] of the traits that makes it special and turning it into a simple mineral would not do it justice.” 

This analogy by Erdoğan is very clear, the minister, saying it was “meaningful that women emphasize the fact that they can be a mother as a biological trait.”