Turkish president: 'No Muslim family' should use birth control

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
(Image credit: Adam Berry/Getty Images)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday echoed previous comments he made about birth control, announcing during a televised speech that "no Muslim family" should use contraception or family planning.

"We will multiply our descendants," said Erdogan, a father of four, and later he called on "well-educated future mothers" to not use contraception. Many supporters of his AK Party are conservative Muslims, and during a wedding ceremony in 2014, Erdogan called birth control "treason." Previously, he said women should have at least three children and that women cannot be treated as equal to men, BBC News reports.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.