President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has criticized birth control and family planning during his speech at the foundation anniversary celebration of the Service for Youth and Education Foundation of Turkey (TÜRGEV), an organization where Erdoğan’s son Bilal is an executive board member.
Erdoğan gave a speech during the 20th foundation anniversary of TÜRGEV on Monday, saying that Muslim families cannot support practices such as birth control and family planning.
“I say this clearly, we will boost our population, increase [the number of individuals in] our generation. No Muslim family can support practices such as birth control and family planning. We will obey whatever our God and Prophet says,” Erdoğan said.
Emphasizing the role of mothers in increasing the number of individuals in our nation, Erdoğan added: “This is the duty of mothers. We must raise this consciousness among the people, starting with our close relatives and friends. The fight between good and evil and right and wrong is an ancient one.”
In December 2014, Erdoğan gave a speech during at wedding and urged the newly married couple to have at least three children to help boost Turkey’s population figures. He added that birth control is a form of “treason” because it “threatens” country’s bloodline.