"Prime Minister Erdoğan is skilled at launching new debates, and he often does so with strongly-held opinions. The latest example is his attack on abortion as “murder.” As a bonus, he even condemned the widespread use of Caesarean section births in Turkey, and argued that this was part of a plan “to slow down Turkey’s birth rate,” the article begins.
"To me, this idea of a “Caesarean conspiracy” against Turkey sounded quite ridiculous. I also found it alarming that Erdoğan and his Cabinet are growing increasingly fond of such conspiracy theories," Akyol says.
"The abortion side of the debate, however, is important. Yet while this issue might raise some controversy in Turkey, I don’t expect it to become a culture war as big as the one in the United States," the author believes.
"The main reason is the Islamic view of abortion, which, just like that of Judaism, tends to be slightly more lenient than the Christian view. Most Catholic or Evangelical Christians believe that life begins at conception, so they regard abortion at any stage as murder. Most Islamic scholars, however, tend to think that the fetus is “given a soul” when it is fully formed, which takes place only in the fourth month of pregnancy," he explains.
"Moreover, I see that Turkey has more burning issues than abortion these days. The Kurdish question is still bleeding, and results in tragic deaths such as the 34 victims of “collateral damage” in Uludere, or the police officers who get killed by the PKK. The government would be wiser to focus on saving those living souls, before those of the unborn," the author concludes.
