Iran plans to eliminate free birth control
Dr. Shahla Mir Galoy Bayat, a member of Iran’s parliamentary health committee, has announced plans to eliminate Iran's successful family-planning programs.
In an effort to reverse declining birth rates, a member of Iran’s parliamentary health committee has announced that Iran plans to eliminate family-planning programs.
“Providing this bill is passed, pre-marriage education and contraception at clinics will be removed,” Dr. Shahla Mir Galoy Bayat told Iranian Labor News Agency. “The bill to prevent declining birth rates will … suspend the free contraceptives that have been provided to the people.”
This is not the first time Iranian officials have proposed slashing family-planning programs. In 2012, Iran’s then-Health Minister Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi announced that family-planning programs would be replaced by fertility programs.
Iran’s fertility rate, currently 1.7, is “below the replacement level” of 2.1, UN Chief of Population Policy Vinod Mishra told Al-Monitor in 2012. Mishra described what was happening in Iran as “one of the most dramatic declines in the world.”
