Turkey moves to curb C-sections, promote 'family values' amid falling birthrate

Turkey has banned caesarean (C-section) births without medical justification in private clinics, part of a wider campaign by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to promote "natural births" and revive what he calls "traditional family values" in response to the country's rapidly declining birthrate.

C-sections account for 61 percent of all births in Turkey, among the highest rates in the world, with the figure rising to 78 percent in some private hospitals. Many Turkish women opt for the procedure, viewing it as a safer and more predictable alternative to natural childbirth.

The new restrictions also limit C-sections to a maximum of two or three births per woman. Recovery periods are typically longer than those following natural births, affecting the time frame for subsequent pregnancies.

The policy has sparked criticism from women's rights activists and opposition politicians, who accuse the government of seeking to control women’s bodies under the guise of demographic concerns.

"This is a new form of political control over women," said Aylin Nazlıaka, an opposition MP with the CHP party, in remarks to Cumhuriyet daily. "This mentality sees women as nothing more than birth machines. Women alone should decide when, how, where, and how many children to have."

Last month, during a Turkish league football match between Sivasspor and Fenerbahçe, players unfurled a banner reading "natural birth is normal birth", which drew widespread backlash.

CHP Deputy Chair Gokçe Gokcen condemned the display on social media: "As if the country had no other problems, male footballers are now telling women how to give birth. Don’t interfere in women’s lives with your ignorance. Keep your hands off our bodies."

President Erdogan defended the stunt, claiming the team was supporting a Health Ministry awareness campaign. "Why does it bother you that our ministry encourages normal birth?" he said.

The ministry says it is now targeting a C-section rate of 20 percent, aiming to lower numbers through public education and prenatal awareness initiatives.

"Decade of the family"

Throughout his presidency, Erdogan, himself a father of four, has sought to revive what he called Islamic and traditional values in secular Turkey.

He said last month that increasing the country’s birth rate was "a matter of survival".

"If the nation fails to pull itself together, it will lose its ability to survive on these lands," he said a few weeks ago at an event hosted by the Women and Democracy Foundation, founded by his daughter Sumeyye: "The threat facing our country is greater than war. The family as an institution is under threat; we must act."

His words and methods, however, of attempting to increase the number of children born in Turkey, has repeatedly drawn the ire of women’s right activists.

In 2016, Erdogan infamously said that Turkish women should have at least three children, if not more.

He described women who "reject motherhood" as "incomplete and deficient".

In the same year, Erdogan said that "no Muslim family" should consider birth control or family planning, and discouraged the use of contraception, which he has labelled as “treason” a couple of year prior.

"We will multiply our descendants," he said in a televised speech in May 2016.

Almost a decade later, Erdogan branded the next ten years as "decade of family and population" in a bid to encourage child birth, and re-centre family life in Turkish society.

In May during an event for the International Family Forum, he labelled the falling birthrates as a "disaster" and "not just a statistic but a warning signal for our nation’s future".

Failure to consider economic factors

Turkey’s current birthrate stands at 1.48 children, having fallen from 2.38 children in 2001. Erdogan has resorted to blaming women as well as the LGBTQ community for this decline, but has failed to consider factors such as the country’s rising unemployment rates, as well as a faltering economy – the worst it has been in decades with Turks largely pointing the finger at Erdogan for failing to keep it from crumbling.

Researchers with the DISK union say the unemployment rate is 28.5 percent, and 37.5 percent among young people.

High inflation has raged in Turkey for the past four years, driving up costs across several sectors including education and childcare, -which undoubtedly impact women’s choice to give birth or not.

Childcare in a public nursery costs up to $48 a month, the equivalent to 330 Turkish lira. A private nursery will cost round 100 to 1500 Turkish lira a month.

He also lashed out Turkish’s youth increasingly shunning a family-centred lifestyle, and instead opting for "personal comfort and individualism".

In 2024, he also launched the Family and Youth Fund, a government initiative to empower newlyweds. This was initially introduced in 2023 in response to the earthquake which rocked southeast Turkey and parts of Syria.

The programme offers young couples an interest-free loan of 150,000 Turkish liras, with a 48-month repayment term and a two-year grace period.

Erdogan's scapegoating of women and modern society reflects a global phenomenon where leaders are seemingly failing to look at the bigger picture, as they try to tackle the decline. Feminists in South Korea and Japan have also criticised similar initiatives by their governments set to encourage pregnancy, where high costs of living, rising misogyny and unemployment have decreased the chances of childbirth.