Turkey Flag

Turkey: Three-plus children for the economy

Our new series returns to our Welcome to Gilead campaign, exploring global restrictions on women’s reproductive rights. This edition revisits the chapter on Turkey from our 2021 Welcome to Gilead report.

[Abortions and cesarean sections are] secret plots designed to stall Turkey’s economic growth and a conspiracy to wipe the Turkish nation from the world stage.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 2012

Economic growth

Like China and Iran, Turkey is no stranger to using reproductive policy to control population size. Following its War of Independence in the early 20th century, Turkish leaders instituted pronatal policies in a nationalist attempt to replace war casualties. Contraception, sterilisation, and even sharing contraception information was made illegal, and abortion was codified as a crime against “racial integrity”.

In the 1960s, however, Turkey joined many other countries in realising that population growth was a threat to economic development and changed its tune, providing free contraception and later legalising abortion. Again, it was economic growth, not women’s rights, that drove the agenda.

One or two children means bankruptcy

The nationalist Justice and Development (AKP) party’s rise to power, with President Erdoğan at its helm, has revived pronatalism in Turkey. In a 2012 speech, Erdoğan called abortion mass murder, equating it to a recent incident in which the military killed 34 of its own civilians. He also claimed that abortions and cesarean sections are “secret plots designed to stall Turkey’s economic growth and a conspiracy to wipe the Turkish nation from the world stage”.

President Erdoğan
President Erdoğan: Photo © Orhan Erkılıç

Though the fertility rate remains above replacement rate, Erdoğan erroneously believes that faster population growth will automatically expand the economy, helping achieve his goal of catapulting Turkey into the world’s top ten economies. He frequently brings up Turkey’s increasing average age – though it’s still much younger than that of most countries in Europe – and tells women that “one or two children mean bankruptcy … At least three children are necessary in each family, because our population risks ageing”.63

Birth control = treason

Nationalism is also at play: experts believe that AKP is concerned with the higher birth rates of the Kurdish minority, and wants to prevent demography from shifting the balance of power. The higher birth rates among Turkey’s large refugee population may also be a concern for nationalists. Erdoğan has told Turkish women that birth control is treason, abortion is unpatriotic, and that to serve their country, they must have at least three children. “A woman who rejects motherhood, who refrains from being around the house, however successful her working life is, is deficient, is incomplete”, according to Erdoğan.

Erdoğan’s calls for baby-making aren’t limited to within Turkey’s borders. He has also implored Turks who live abroad to have at least five children – even more than their compatriots – in order to “stake a claim” in their new countries.

Confusing the issue

To realise its goals, AKP has repeatedly attempted to restrict abortion, either by limiting it to only the first month of pregnancy or banning it altogether. Such harsh actions were thwarted by public opposition but succeeded in confusing people into believing abortion is now illegal in Turkey.

Turkey Flag

The attempts have also encouraged doctors to refuse provision of abortion or allow it only with a husband’s permission – leaving single women without options. The Ministry of Health, which supplies clinics with contraceptives, is inconsistent at best: in 2012, it did not purchase any contraceptives at all. Nurses often have to watch women leave empty-handed when they come in for contraceptives, only to return a few months later, pregnant.

As in the United States, neoliberal reforms have also put reproductive healthcare out of reach for many poor Turks. The government can withhold 20% of nurses’ salaries if they don’t meet performance measures, which crucially don’t include reproductive healthcare. So, nurses often refuse to provide services like IUD insertion simply because they are pressured into prioritising other healthcare.

NEWSLETTER

Do you want to find out more about our important work? Sign up to our newsletter to keep up to date with all things population and consumption.