Tehran, Iran, Jul. 15
By Milad Fashtami - Trend:
Annually 220,000 abortions are being carried out in Iran.
Deputy Health Minister Ali Akbar Sayyari said on July 15 that only 7,000 cases out of the mentioned figure are performed legally and the rest are carried out in places without legal licenses, Iran's IRNA News Agency reported.
He went on to note that if the government stops providing necessary services, the situation will get worse in future.
"Financial problems and women's desire to continue their studies without being forced to take care of babies are the main reasons behind the abortions," he said.
Iranian parliament has passed a bill to increase the country's population. It is while the government is against the plan.
Iranian Parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, previously said that abortions are dangerous, adding that financial problems are no excuse to carry out abortion.
"The country's population growth is desirable now, but the high rate of divorces and the gap between marriage and having a child are not good," he said.
Iranian lawmakers say population levels are dropping - and to reverse that, they want to ban vasectomies and scale back abortions.
The leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has been critical of the nation's open door to contraception for years, saying allowing women to abort and men to sterilize is too Western and that it would lead to a dwindled population level in the nation.
The Guardian reported that about 70 percent of Iran's population are younger than 35.