Accessibility links

Breaking News

Turkey President: 'Family Planning Not for Muslims'


An illustrative photo shows a woman holding a birth control pill.
An illustrative photo shows a woman holding a birth control pill.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said no Muslim family should use birth control or engage in family planning, saying the practices violate Muslim traditions.

"We will multiply our descendants. They talk about population planning, birth control. No Muslim family can have such an approach," he said Monday in a televised speech.

Erdogan, a devout Muslim, has angered women's groups in the past by dictating how many children a woman should have and speaking against gender equality.

He has previously attempted to ban abortion in the country and has called for limits on Caesarean births, saying women who give birth that way generally cannot have more than one more child.

  • 16x9 Image

    VOA News

    The Voice of America provides news and information in more than 40 languages to an estimated weekly audience of over 326 million people. Stories with the VOA News byline are the work of multiple VOA journalists and may contain information from wire service reports.

XS
SM
MD
LG