The Fertility Debate

I did a paper on this 5 years back as part of my graduate degree program. I will submit a reduced version of it to chowk, so they can consider it for publication.

This issue is of utmost importance to Pakistan.

Population control should be a top priority

in the country because without it any progress

made economically is bound to fail.

There are difficult times ahead on this issue

but leaders need to bring it back into the mainstream.

This problem needs maximum exposure and

women need to have a defining voice in it.


Ras

Re: # 32

I apologize for demanding substatiation of your claim. I hope you can find it in your infinite wisdom to pardon my insolence.

:-)~~

RE:-# 31

ntsyed
You wrote,{{{Were you giving one, getting one, or videotaping/documenting one?}}

You are the one who started this abuse for me. Did I step on your tail?

What kind of Muslim you are , first abusing me and then when I got even with you , started abusing me more. Not only that blaming all on me.

BTW, this article is not about me , this article is about abortions.

If you have even a little decency left, apologize to the wirtter of this article for derailing this article.

I never derailed this article. enoguh said.

Re: # 30

Awww... that was so thoughtful of you. You`re such a sweetheart!

Care to share the video with the rest of us here?

Were you able to figure out the Benny Hill quote at the end of #27? NO? Awwww again.

Still, though, I`m confused by your earlier statement of witnessing ``millions of women``?

Also, could you please tell me which one of your raw nerve(s) I`ve touched? You certainly seem to have many. I only wish to know so I don`t subject you to the same agony in future.

Anyway, if you can`t substantiate your claim about witnessing ``millions of women`` and videotaping my `family female` [which could very well be none other than yourself, thanks to the anonymity of the Internet forums], as a RADICAL TERRORIST (as you`ve bestowed the title on me at another board) I forgive you in the name of Allah - The One Who has created both you and I.

As such my sincere advice to you is to refrain from making careless comments, for you`ll only make a fool of yourself. And if you do commit the mistake again, try not to get abusive if someone points out the obvious contradictions in your statements. Take the higher road and admit your guilt. Trust me, you`ll do a tremendous service to yourself and your homeland USA.

Sincerely,
:-)~~

RE:-
#27
ntsyed
You wrote,{{{Were you giving one, getting one, or videotaping/documenting one?}}

ntsyed sahib jii

Yes, Sir I was wittnessing one which was gotten by your family female. Your family female was brought to backstreet , got one, I videotaped it ....poor lady got septic and lost her.................

Thank you

Shahgul #28, {``It is permissible in Islam to plan your family``}

Shahgul,
It goes like this:

First I will marry Shagufta, then Bilquis, then Neelofar, and finally Kahkasha. Now if I get the hots for Shayla, I will have to retire Shagufta and so on.

It is permissible in Islam to plan your family. The prophet in one of his ahadeeth stated that he himself practiced family planning.
The motive, howver should not be to please colonial masters who want a decrease in the black and brown races of the world, while they provide incentives for the `superior race` to propogate their seed as evidenced in European countries like Germany for example.
In America, we reward our single mothers to have a `haram ka baccha` every year by providing free milk, food, medical services and residences to them. When these women cannot bear any more children, they start their teen daughters to proliferate and therefore guarantee the funds coming in.
Folks, take pride in your children and don`t believe the propoganda of `slave` governments who are their master`s voice when they say `kam bachay khushhal gharana`. That is absolute bull.
Yes, Americans are more conservative regarding abortions than men in Muslim coutries. There are more abortions done in the backwaters of countries like Pakistan than by people who go to doctors for them.

Re: # 14

Zeena: ``I have witnessed millions of women going for backstreet abortions in highly unsanitary conditions induced by mid wives ..... In America, where abortion is legal, there are almost no abortion induced complications. ``

Now, how did you manage to ``witness`` such crimes - committed by ``millions of women``, and that too in the ``backstreets``? Were you giving one, getting one, or videotaping/documenting one? And if you acutally did ``witness`` even one, doesn`t that make you an accomplice since abortion is after all a crime in Pakistan. In that case we may just have to add your name to the interpol search warrants along with BB.

Dear child, there ARE illegal abortions in Pakistan, and many of them according to some unofficial sources, but the numbers don`t even come close to even the first million.

As for abortions being legal in the USA, it is not so in all 50 states. I apologize for bursting your nascent made in America bubble, but there are plenty of ``abortion induced complications``. You just may have been too busy ``witnessing`` millions of Pakistani women getting illegal abortions to visit the United States of America you claim to be your homeland.

Please learn to use/be the blowhorn and don`t strain your brain lest you hurt yourself. But again, hints suffice the intelligent and it`s foolish to expect fools to understand anything.


On a side note:-

``Funny that most people in favor of abortion are alive`` - Benny Hill. Figure that out Sweetie.

:-)~~

Giving the benefit of doubt to the author, she may just have been commenting on the book and the views may not be entirely hers. Still, the article does not even fare average, because birth rates have little, if anything, to do with economics and/or education. However, infant and female mortality rates do.

But more to the point, family planning is permissible in Islam as already pointed out in one of the interacts. However, to understand the logic behind any permission, prohibition, order, etc in Islam, one must study the system as a whole. Discussing just a part by itself often does not suffice.

If we put the religion aside for a moment, ponder the following:

-for every child to be conceived there is a pair of chromosomes X and Y.
-XX produces female, and XY produces male
-women only produce X chromosomes, while men produce both
-therefore, the probability of conceiving a female child is 3:1
-in almost every demographic setting, women have a shorter reproductive cycle and even lifespan

Under the circumstances, when women outnumber men by 51:49, what would be the ratio between men and women if abortion is to be legalized and generalized as propagated by Feminazis and their deadbeat male supporters, and EVERYONE fell for family planning crap by the West and the UN? Doesn`t it explain the population decline in the Western hemisphere where now the governments are practically begging the women to have more children?

I`ve posted the following on another board and dare to post here again for your enlightment

“Europe is literally melting away like snow in the sun, slipping from 15.6 percent of the world population in 1950 to 10.2 percent in 1985 and 6.4 percent in 2025.” [World Population at The Turn of the Century, United Nations, New York, 1989, page 8.]

“If you look at Europe and then at other continents, the comparison is terrifying. In demographic terms, Europe is vanishing. Twenty or so years from now, our countries will be empty, and no matter what our technical strength, we shall be incapable of putting it to use” President Jacque Chirac.

“It cannot be expected that the most powerful military nations will sit still while other nations reverse the balance of power by the mere process of breeding.” (Bertrand Russel, Marriage and Morals, 1929)``








:-)~~

harimau #13 {``Actually, invading Turks introduced buggery to Bulgaria, condemning an entire nation!``}

Harry,
Obviously, you missed out on the recent ``Alexander`` flick. :) The Turks were banging their heads against the Great Wall of China when Alexander was kicking ass all over the Balkans (including Bulgaria, Thrace, and Macedonia), Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Media, Persia. Oxiana, and India.

A good article. My mother is a family planning consultant and has worked in the most economically deprived areas of Pakistan. I am all for planned families, but I am not exactly a fan of abortions (unless they are done for health reasons). Every right comes with responsibilty. If a woman/man has the right to have control over her/his sex life then they should also be ready to take care of a new life when the condom rips.

I as a women and mother understand the need to be able to have children when you are economically, physically, psycologically and emotionally ready to have a child. Allah is the one who will provide for all souls that are on this earth but we are the ones who need to raise them as good human beings. Once my mohter worked in a very poor locality and a woman who was 20 yrs old already had 4 children and was pregnant with her fifth. The children she already had were sick, hungry, uneducated. What did the 5th child have to expect. But when the subject of family planning came up she was all for it but her elders used to say if you women will not have children then how will we get Imam`s and scholars!!! The locality had the most number of delinquents and drug users.

Family planning is not a woman or man issue. It is a mutual understanding and decision of both husband and wife.

Author, a higher fertility rate can result from a number of factors. Usually population segments that lag behind economically tend to have a higher birth rate, sometimes to provide additional wage earners, sometimes as a precaution/preemption against a higher child mortality rate, and sometimes simply because of heeding the advice of older female role models because of less independent individual thinking which can be due to less education. There is an inherent falult in the approach of labeling this phenomenon by religion. From reading your summary of the contents, it appears that the original authors have attempted to tread a difficult path - they tried to bring in and encourage a few more liberal concepts related to women`s choices without stepping on the toes of the religious powers. It is indeed sad that a man or a woman would have to look for the approval of a Mullah for something as personal as what you call ``azl`` in this writeup. The problem statement is faulty as well - it should not be whether certain practices are permissible under Islam or not - but why should the religion be allowed such a strong hold on the daily lives of individuals that things which are obvious to the eye need to be justified by using circuitous routes of argument.

#1

Escapist,

You must be an idoit Suni. I am sick and tired of your fu**en bulshit. You should shove those so called Holy books up your Suni A*s

God is Great.......

haideri

Brilliant article as always. So insightful.

Aslam644

Thanks! Some real number crunching, both historical and cross sectional, will be really useful in this area. If that has been done, then it should be more accessible to us ordinary folks.

It will be a hard area to research though. Put religion as a variable in any analysis; immediately, in addition to all other errors, people become far less interested in deriving results from data than in cooking up data from results.

A mediocre piece by a mediocre writer, needs editing too.

Kaalchakra
According to demographers fertility replacement level is 2.1 children per woman, when fertility drops below this level populations start to decline gradually.the following muslim countries fertility rates have dropped below this level, Turkey, Iran, Tunisia, Lebanon, Algeria, Kazakhstan, Bosnia. I don’t think there is a strong correlation between incomes and fertility, as the examples of UAE and Kuwait prove. I think there is a stronger correlation between female literacy, empowerment etc, and fertility rates.


http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2127.html

Kaalchakra
According to demographers fertility replacement level is 2.1 children per woman, when fertility drops below this level populations start to decline gradually.the following muslim countries fertility rates have dropped below this level, Turkey, Iran, Tunisia, Lebanon, Algeria, Kazakhstan, Bosnia. I don’t think there is a strong correlation between incomes and fertility, as the examples of UAE and Kuwait prove. I think there is a stronger correlation between female literacy, empowerment etc, and fertility rates.


http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2127.html

khurram, aslam644

Do you guys know of any good research in this area?

On side note:-

99.05% percent of anti-abortion leaders are men. 100% of them will never be pregnant. ~Planned Parenthood advertisement

Dear Writer

Very thoughtful article! I must say you have done an excellent job of putting it all together.

In my opinion abortion is every woman`s personal choice, right and decision to make with any pregnancy, either expected or unexpected.

I have seen women who are strongly against abortion, end up having one, when they end up having unexpected pregnancy. At that point, it becomes their own issue.

The countries where abortion is not legal, like Pakistan, I have witnessed millions of women going for backstreet abortions in highly unsanitary conditions induced by mid wives and they ended up in hospitals with either incomplete abortions, bleeding profusely, missed abortions, septic abortions, or with uterine ruptures and septicemia, hemorrhagic shocks, and majority of them died either at their homes or in hospitals due to all these complications of backstreet abortions.

Mostly, by the time they reached hospitals, it was too, late and they died at the spot.........

In America, where abortion is legal, there are almost no abortion induced complications.

Not only that every women has every right to her own body, she is not anyone`s slave to make this important decision by other`s choice.

Give them freedom of choice, don`t give them deaths.

Even if religious Mullahs raise slogans against abortions, abortions can`t be stopped.

As a result of this, majority of women in an effort to hide their abortions under the carpet loose their lives and their genitalias........................

Ref Salim_Chauhan #7

Actually, invading Turks introduced buggery to Bulgaria, condemning an entire nation!

contrary to popular belief,turkey, iran and algeria`s fertility rates have dropped to western levels, without the western social welfare,that is a grim prospect for elderly folks.

There is a well known relationship between economic development and fertility rates.

Once that is accounted for, is there any correlation between religion and fertility rates?

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Aisha,
Finally I finished reading your excellent article on a very important subject. In our misplaced quest for domination via numbers, we Muslims are actually fornicating ourselves into abject poverty and backwardness. The same taboos against contraceptives that Muslim ulema impose are in fact there in writing in the Holy Bible. For example, Onan, the son of Judah, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, who was the son of Abraham, was struck dead by God because he ``wasted`` his seed during intercourse with his brother Er`s widow, Tamar.

The following is an interesting story from the Bible about how men have traditionally, morally, and socially controlled the two-party task of procreation:

http://www.duckworks.net/byEd/chapter3.html

``Family Matters``

{``Judah had sons named Er, Onan, and Shelah.

Er married a woman named Tamar, but then Er offended God, so God killed him. Judah told Onan to impregnate Tamar, according to the tradition. Onan was not disposed to do so, so he practiced coitus interruptus with her. This offended God, so God killed Onan too. Almost out of sons, Judah sent Tamar home to her father. He promised that she could marry Shelah as soon as he grew up. Years passed. Shelah had grown up, but Tamar was still living a widow`s life at her dad`s.

One time, when she knew Judah would pass by a certain place, she disguised herself as a prostitute, putting a veil on her face. When he saw her, he offered her a goat in exchange for a sexual encounter. She accepted. He didn`t have a goat right with him, so he left his seal, cord and staff as security. When he tried to pay up, Tamar had already resumed her true identity, so she didn`t get her goat.

About three months later, Judah was told that his daughter-in-law Tamar had been playing the harlot and had gotten pregnant. He ordered her to be burned alive. Tamar showed Judah the seal, cord and staff, and said that it was the owner of these who`d knocked her up. Recognizing them, Judah knew what happened. He said that he`d really deserved it since he hadn`t given his last son Shelah to Tamar, so he didn`t burn her alive.

In due time, she bore twins, Perez and Zerah. As it turned out, Perez`s direct descendants included King David, and later Joseph the carpenter, Jesus` step-dad. ``}

``Why do most Muslim populations have a higher birth rate than other communities in similar geographic bounds? Why is Turkey’s birth rate higher than neighboring Greece? And how much of a say do Muslim woman have on how and when their uteruses are filled with life?``

there may be simpler explannation besides those highfaluting concepts of Ijtehad or Taqleed.

without bringing Islam exclusively into the uterus as well -- if we look at it rather objectively -- the Muslim woman has as much a say as a Pope`s Catholic woman has -- or for that matter a Greek Orthodox Church`s woman has -- as to ``how and when their uteruses are filled with life``....

may be the Greek men have other non-uterine avenues of sports and WORK available to them to exhaust themselves -- and the poor Turks have none -- except the uterus to play with, for most of their Non- Working hours....

....(which may be fewer and far between for the industrious Greeks but plenty for the lazyTurks)…....

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this is a slippery slope..once you allow women to have procreation rights, they will next demand sexual rights..and then the ``society`` comes undone.

re: Aisha

This was a very educational article.

Thanks!

Ciao

> what the Muslims should do is to try to have as many children as they can, because this is
> the command of the Prophet

i guess ur kind is already doing that. There is now almost 30% muslim population in assam.
at this rate - Assam should soon become our second muslim majority state...

> Marry the one who is loving and fertile, for I will be proud of your great numbers before the
> nations
are sure this was god speaking.... sounds like satan to me.
no wait - this is YOUR god speaking , right ... ok now it makes sense.

carry on.

Guys Guys...this is not about having litters and such. Islam is laying down the law that couples should decide jointly as to the numbers of kids they want to have. And until Aisha wrote this article, no one in the muslim world actually knew that. Not even the prophet..how many kids did that cat have?

Re: # 1
..Having more children increases the numbers of the ummah, and increasing the numbers of the ummah is a source of its glory, as Allaah says, reminding the Children of Israel of His blessings:...``

IWhat an insane idea! It perhaps was OK in the 7th century. Now what you want to do ? -Increase population and drown and choke in numbers and the pollution it creates!

I think Religionists and religion has no busines to tell awoman about her body and soul. It is between her and her God. Sooner the Mullaha and priests get out of town, the better.

Kamath

what the Muslims should do is to try to have as many children as they can, because this is the command of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), who said: “Marry the one who is loving and fertile, for I will be proud of your great numbers before the nations.” (Narrated by Abu Dawood, 2050; classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Saheeh Abi Dawood, 1805).

Having more children increases the numbers of the ummah, and increasing the numbers of the ummah is a source of its glory, as Allaah says, reminding the Children of Israel of His blessings:

“and made you more numerous in man-power”

[al-Isra’ 15:6 – interpretation of the meaning]

And Shu’ayb said to his people:

“And remember when you were but few, and He multiplied you”

[al-A’raaf 7:86 – interpretation of the meaning]

No one can deny that having a large number is a source of pride and strength for the ummah, contrary to what those pessimists think who say that large numbers causes poverty and starvation in a nation.

If the ummah increases in number, puts its trust in Allaah and believes His promises as mentioned in the aayah,

“And no moving (living) creature is there on earth but its provision is due from Allaah”

[Hood 11:6 – interpretation of the meaning], then Allaah will make things easy for them and will grant them independence of means from His bounty. Based on that, the answer to your question is as follows:

Birth control pills:

A woman should not use birth control pills, unless the following conditions are met:

1- She should need to use them, for example if she is ill and cannot cope with a pregnancy every year, or she is physically unfit, or there is some other reason that getting pregnant every year may harm her.

2- Her husband should give his permission, because the husband has the right to have children. There must also be consultation with the doctor, to find out whether these pills are harmful or not.

If these two conditions are met, there is nothing wrong with taking these pills, but that should not be on a permanent basis, because that means preventing having children.

With regard to ‘azl (coitus interruptus), or withdrawing during intercourse, the correct scholarly view is that there is nothing wrong with it, because of the hadeeth of Jaabir (may Allaah be pleased with him): “We used to practise ‘azl at the time when the Qur’aan was being revealed” – i.e., at the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him). If that action had been haraam, the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) would have forbidden it. But the scholars say that one should not engage in ‘azl with a free woman except with her permission, because she has the right to have children. Moreover, withdrawing without her permission diminishes her pleasure, because the woman’s pleasure can only be completed after ejaculation. So not asking her permission causes her to lose out on pleasure and on the possibility of having children. Hence we state the condition that this may only be done with her permission.

From Fataawa al-Shaykh Muhammad ibn ‘Uthaymeen.