Turkey has imposed a ban on elective Caesarian-section births at private healthcare facilities without a medical justification under new health ministry regulations published this weekend in the government's official gazette.
The move, which has sparked a furious response from opposition politicians and rights groups, came after a heated debate in Turkey over how women should give birth.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been pushing hard for women to have so-called natural births.
"Planned Caesarean sections cannot be performed in a medical centre," said an April 19 gazette entry outlining new regulations governing private healthcare institutions, which hit the headlines on Sunday.
Turkey has the highest rate of C-section births among the OECD's 38 nations, according to the last available data from 2021. Figures from the World Population Review show there were 584 such procedures out of every 1,000 live births that year.
The childbirth debate flared up last weekend at the start of a Super Lig football clash between Fenerbahce and Sivassapor. Sivassapor players walked onto the pitch carrying a huge banner reflecting a health ministry initiative to promote vaginal births, reading: "Natural birth is natural."
The move sparked fury from politicians, doctors and women's rights organisations.
- 'Hands off' -
"As if the country had no other problems, male football players are telling women how to give birth," wrote Gokce Gokcen, deputy chair of the main opposition CHP on X.
"Don't interfere in women's affairs with your ignorance. Keep your hands off women's bodies," she wrote, in remarks echoed by other women politicians and rights groups.
In January, Erdogan declared 2025 would be the "year of the family" in a bid to address Turkey's declining fertility rate, which hit a historic low of 1.51 in 2023. Erdogan has repeatedly suggested that women have at least three children.
On Saturday, he lashed out at those who had taken issue with the football banner.
"One of our football clubs took to the field with a banner to support an awareness campaign by the health ministry," he said.
"There was no insult, no criticism, no disrespect to anyone on the banner, nothing to offend women. ... Why does it bother you that our ministry encourages normal birth?
"We have no time for such nonsense at a time when our fertility rate and population growth rate are causing alarm," he said, warning that Turkey's declining population was "a threat much more significant than war."