Friday, June 7, 2013

Women's reproductive rights in Turkey under challenge


The misogynist rubbish that comes out of politician’s mouthes in opposition to women’s reproductive rights should be entered in the Guinness Book of World Records for  biological idiocies & political malice. They deserve a place of special disrepute. Most of these half-wits have advanced degrees, have fathered children, & make national laws & this should make us all tremble--before we throw their sorry asses out!

The latest idiocy comes from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a conservative & authoritarian leader who has openly proclaimed his opposition to women’s rights & has encouraged Turkish women to have at least 3 to 5 kids. In a blustering outburst chock-full of cognitive dissonance he connected a government massacre of Kurdish villagers to women’s reproductive rights.

In December 2011, 34 mostly teen-age Kurds smuggling cigarettes, tea, & diesel fuel by mule across the Iraqi border were executed by Turkish air force bombers who claimed they mistook them for Kurdish separatist guerrillas. Since the government is under harsh criticism for the massacre near the village of Uludere, Erdogan is accused of trying to kill two political birds with one stone by excusing the deaths as justified & no worse than the overuse of Caesarean sections to deliver children or the overuse of abortion as a form of contraception. “Every abortion is like an Uludere,” Erdogan proclaimed.

Since abortion (which is legal in Turkey until the 10th week of pregnancy) has not been a subject of significant public debate or opposition from Islamic scholars, there is speculation on what prompted Erdogan to take it on. Some say it is to deflect attention from the Uludere massacre; many feminists say the attacks on women’s reproductive freedoms have been coming for a long while now.

This is the Istanbul Feminist Collective protesting Erdogan who did not just utter misogynist claptrap but moved immediately to reduce women’s access to family planning.

(Photo by occupygezipics)

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