From: Zeynep Tufekcioglu <zeynept-AT-turk.net>
Subject: Re: M-I: Rights, etc. (To Rob, Carrol, and Others) (PS)
Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 03:51:40 +0300


Come to think of it, I think this debate shows how we must take each
country/region as a concrete case. I am now remembering the National
Security Council plan that was leaked or stolen or whatever. The National
Security Council had this grand worry that overpopulation was a serious
problem for Turkey, which it may well be, but the data is not conclusive.
Anyway, guess where the number of children per family is highest? The
southeast, the Kurdish areas. This got published in leftist journals, for a
while, there was a fear, and a real possibility, of widepread semi-forced
abortions in the "region", as the Kurdish lands have come to be called. It
never came to be, but the report was damn serious.

Btw, anyone married can get an abortion for almost free (last I knew) in the
mother-child clinics, though their scope does not extend to all of Turkey.
Else, it is a cheap procedure in state hospitals, a bit more expensive but
definitely affordable in private clinics and doctors. Becoming a
gynecologist requires the highest grades in the medical school exams, any
doctor who wants to earn serious money wants to become one. Most
gynecologists performs dozens and dozens and dozens in a day. A doctor
friend of mine was shocked to learn his gynecologist colleague in his
hospital was about to by a yacht.

I am now beginning to understand why I always watched the great abortion
fight in the States in semi-amazement. The cultural, political (and
economic, there is real money involved) landscape is so different here,
viewing abortion as a "technical" question can lead to all sorts of
domination and exploitation of women, whereas it seems to have the opposite
effect in the USA. 

Zeynep

At 19:02 7/7/1997 -0500, you wrote:
>Zeynep,
>
>    The edge of the whole reproductive debate is different in different
>societies, and is tied up with the varying forms and degrees of female
>subordination. I think there is no serious conflict between your concerns
>and those Yoshie and I are expressing.
>
>Carrol
>




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