Contraception, Abortion and Assisted Fertility Among Muslim Women A Look at Islamic Culture and Policy in Iran and Afghanistan

Discourse on women's reproductive rights through the lens of Muslim culture. The use of contraception, assisted fertility and abortion, are analyzed in Iran and Afghanistan. The culture surrounding family planning is detailed through a woman’s community, family, religion and the laws that govern the society they live in, which all influence her decision making in these matters. This piece stands as a cultural analysis of women's agency specifically in Middle Eastern Muslim culture, as it stands as a part of a global women's rights movement. Disciplines Female Urogenital Diseases and Pregnancy Complications | Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Health Policy | International and Area Studies | Near and Middle Eastern Studies | Obstetrics and Gynecology | Social and Cultural Anthropology | Social Policy | Women's Studies Comments This paper was written for Professor Amy Evrard's course, ANTH 218: Islam and Women, Spring 2016. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. This student research paper is available at The Cupola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College: http://cupola.gettysburg.edu/ islamandwomen/10 Contraception, Abortion and Assisted Fertility among Muslim Women: A Look at Islamic Culture and Policy in Iran and Afghanistan by Hayley Jacobsen Discourse on family planning is relevant to the lives of all women. Their rights and decisions on matters of contraception, abortion and assisted fertility are influenced by the world around them. A woman’s community, family, religion and the laws that govern the society they live in all effect to what extent she can make decision on these issues and influence what she will decide for herself. For Muslim women, their religion may or may not be a larger factor in the family planning process. A Shi’a Muslim woman from Iran may experience a different situation from a Sunni Muslim in Afghanistan; and their plights may also be similar in some ways. This paper aims to look at the laws governing a woman’s right and access to contraception, abortion, and assisted fertility; as well as how Islam and her community influence her access and decisions. Iran and Afghanistan were chosen for this study as they represent the two major sects of Islam. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a Central Asian country of Sunni Muslim majority. Afghanistan, which has an agriculture-dependent economy, suffers from high illiteracy rates; in 2006, 87 percent of women were illiterate (Library of CongressFederal Research Division 2008a). The Islamic Republic of Iran is a Middle Eastern country with a Shia Muslim majority. Iran does not suffer from the same low literacy rates, with 79% of women being literate. This may be owing to the fact that Iran is a less rural nation, as its economy is dominated by the oil industry (Library of CongressFederal Research Division 2008b). These two countries border one another. This fact suggests that there may be some shared cultural features. More