Turkish Health Minister Kemal Memişoğlu has defended a new regulation banning elective Caesarean births in private healthcare facilities, following widespread criticism of a recent campaign promoting vaginal births.
The ban, introduced after a heated national debate over childbirth practices, was published in the Official Gazette on April 19, attracting strong criticism from opposition politicians as well as rights groups.
“You can’t have a planned C-section with drums and zurna at medical centers,” Memişoğlu said, referring to the traditional Turkish instruments used to celebrate special occasions.
He argued that the government does not aim to restrict women’s freedoms.
“What is natural is normal birth,” he said, adding that C-sections should be performed only when medically necessary.
The minister said the global average rate of C-section births is 15 percent, while Turkey’s rate stands at 61 percent.
As part of a national campaign to promote vaginal births, Memişoğlu said the Health Ministry has implemented six out of 10 steps in its new action plan.
Addressing the country’s declining birth rate, the minister also emphasized the importance of having children.
“If you don’t have children, you are not a family, you are just husband and wife,” he said.
Turkey has the highest rate of C-section births among the 38 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, according to the most recent available data from 2021. Figures from the World Population Review show 584 C-sections per 1,000 live births in Turkey that year.
Amid concerns about Turkey’s declining birth rate, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who advises families to have at least three children to boost the country’s population, also advises Muslim families not to use birth control or family planning and opposes C-sections as well.
He has attracted widespread criticism for interfering in people’s reproductive choices. The Health Ministry also runs campaigns promoting natural childbirth over C-sections in line with Erdoğan’s suggestions.
Public debate about childbirth practices intensified after players from the Sivasspor football team carried a Health Ministry-approved banner during a Süper Lig match on April 13. The banner read: “What’s natural is normal birth,” with a secondary message stating, “Unless medically necessary, a Caesarean section is not natural.”
The campaign prompted swift backlash on social media and from women’s rights organizations, who argued that how a woman gives birth should be a decision made between her and her doctor.