Recent public statements against abortion by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and other deputies of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have sparked a wave of protests across many cities in Turkey. Thousands of women took to the streets in early June to protest the plans of the AKP for making abortion illegal.
In a statement in late May, Erdogan, after calling abortion murder, bizarrely connected the issue to a recent massacre of 35 civilians by the Turkish Air Force in Uludere, a southeastern province in Turkey with mainly Kurdish population. Erdogan was quoted: “I see abortion as murder, I am speaking to the media that keeps on bringing up Uludere. Every abortion is an Uludere.”
He went on to say, “It is everyone’s duty to fight against abortion since it is a devious plan to wipe the Turkish Nation from the world.” Another AKP deputy, Ayhan Sefer Üstün, the head of the Human Rights Commission of the Turkish parliament, after describing abortion as “a crime against humanity,” stated that doctors who perform abortions are worse than rapists.
In İstanbul, Ankara and many other cities across Turkey, thousands of women gathered in protest to denounce the reactionary policies of the governing AKP. In Istanbul, a press statement was read during the demonstration there, which was attended by thousands. The statement said that the prime minister and AKP are the enemies of all women in Turkey and it is the responsibility of the government to provide free and accessible abortion to all women instead of banning it. It was also noted that abortion is a right, which is not even open to discussion. Police detained four women who blocked the street in front of the prime minister’s office in Istanbul.
In Ankara, thousands took to the streets. In reference to the Uludere massacre and the widespread police brutality, signs read: “Abortion is my decision, murder is your method,” and “AKP, get your hands and police off my body.” In a press release read aloud, it was stressed that it is not the lives of children the prime minister is concerned about but the effort to guarantee the provision of a cheap labor force to the world market by a higher birth rate.
Outside the headquarters of AKP, protesters demanded the release of the four women detained earlier in the protests in Istanbul. The police intervened with tear gas, forcefully dispersing the protesters.
In Eskişehir, hundreds of protesters started to march to the AKP headquarters, but the police intervened to block the crowd. Eight protesters, seven of them women, were detained.
In a statement released by the Turkish Obstetrics and Gynecology Association, it was noted that since the legalization of abortion in 1983 in Turkey, the maternal mortality rate has decreased significantly, while the life expectancy of women has increased by 14 years. In total contrast to the PM’s description of abortion as murder, it was also stressed that it is the unavailability of legal abortion services that causes the deaths annually of over 68,000 women worldwide.
Abortion is an issue of women’s right to health care. Access to safe and legal abortion means that women are recognized as human beings with a right to control their own bodies and reproductive processes. Those seeking to ban abortion, whether in Turkey, the U.S. or anywhere else, are perpetrating a direct attack on women’s rights as well as a horrendous crime that kills thousands of women annually.
