ABORTION IN TURKEY - A MATTER OF STATE, FAMILY OR INDIVIDUAL DECISION

This paper gives a historical, international and cultural outlook on t he debate related to the 1982 legalization of abortion in the modern d emocratic republic of Turkey. A belief that the country is under-popul ated and subsequent pro-natalist concerns of the turn of the century s eem to have strongly influenced the legal prohibition of abortion. The paper first discusses the widespread social practice and the permissi ve attitudes towards abortion in the late Ottoman Empire and in contem porary Turkey. The contrast between the above social situation and unt il recently the strict, non-permissive religious and secular attitudes are presented with a discussion of the effects of the westernization and secularization processes in the late Ottoman Empire. Moral concern s and judgements regarding abortion seem to have penetrated Ottoman so ciety as part of the above processes beginning in the nineteenth centu ry. The present day official religious interpretations seem to conform with the more conservative Islamic schools of thought rather than the more liberal Islamic interpretations. Furthermore, the 1982 laws whic h legalize abortion until the eighth week of pregnancy consider family planning to be a family issue and bring the restriction of making mar ried women have their husband's permission before preceding with abort ion. As such, the present legal platform opens to question the rationa les and population control motives behind the law and the importance o f who it is that can make the decision to proceed with abortion. Thus, in the last 70 years a historical and ideological progression can be discerned in the line of assuming first the state and then the family to have decision making legitimacy as regards reproductive choices. To day, the platform of radical discussion has shifted to evaluating the importance of individual women in making this reproductive choice. In this context, in conclusion, the paper discusses the rationale and the logic behind and the implications for gender power structures of the existing legal situation in Turkey.