Although voluntary abortion is legal until the 10th week of pregnancy in Turkey, for the last 10 years, anti-abortion practices have been systematically implemented, turning into a de facto ban. Women have difficulties in reaching hospitals, obstetricians and birth control.
In Turkey, the 1983 law on Population Planning permits terminating pregnancies voluntarily until the 10th week. After 10 weeks, abortion is permitted if the pregnancy constitutes a risk to mother’s life, or there’s a risk for “the child and the future generations to be severely disabled.”
Although abortion is legal in Turkey since 1983, de facto access to it is not always guaranteed, partly due to condemnatory statements by political leaders whose words may sometimes be more effective in shaping the practice than the laws.
In a speech in 2012, the then prime minister Erdoğan said, “I see abortion as murder. Nobody should have the right to allow it. There’s no difference between killing a child in its mother’s womb and killing a child after it’s born.”
Just a few days after Erdoğan’s speech, his Health Minister Recep Akdağ declared that women should give birth even in rape related pregnancies, saying “in such a case the state shall take care of the child.”
These statements were soon followed by a draft law reducing legal time limit for abortions and introducing a right to “conscientious objection” for doctors, among other restrictions. Amid protests by women’s rights groups and medical associations the bill was ultimately withdrawn.
But what followed in recent years shows that the damage was already done even without an anti-abortion law in force.
According to a research done by activists from a women’s shelter (Purple Roof) in 2015, out of 37 public hospitals contacted, only 3 said they provide non-emergency abortions, 17 said they do it only if there are emergency complications and 12 hospitals refused to offer even emergency abortions.
According to a wider research by Kadir Has University in Istanbul in 2016, only 10 hospitals out of 295 offer abortion services to the full extent provided for in the current law.
When asked for the reasons for not offering abortion services most of the hospitals responded by saying that “abortion is illegal or forbidden”, “it is forbidden in public hospitals” or that “it’s the doctor’s choice.”
A de facto ban
Sedef Erkmen, published a book titled Abortion in Turkey – AKP and Biopolitics says that the anti-abortion practices that have been systematically implemented since 2012 turned into a de facto ban.
“Since the understanding that abortion is murder is imposed by the government, some doctors don’t carry out surgeries despite it being against the law. They know that they will be protected by the government if women complain about it.”
Erkmen notes that one of the leading factors that women seek abortions is the difficulty in accessing birth control methods.
“Because the state doesn’t make it easy for people to access birth control methods and because they are very expensive, women, especially impoverished ones, seek abortion. The high prices lead to unwanted pregnancies, but they also face difficulties in abortion so the problem keeps growing.”
Saying that women who can’t access abortion choose methods that endanger their lives, Erkmen notes that women have to get a written permission from their husbands for an operation.
“For single women, the biggest fear is to be going under record. Health officials visit you at your house if you find out that you’re pregnant with a test at a doctor’s office.”
