On November 1, the Islamic Republic of Iran enacted a sweeping new draconian law that further restricts and criminalizes Iran’s already harsh anti-abortion laws and drastically slashes access to birth control and family planning.

The new “Youthful Population and Protection of the Family”¹ explicitly aims to raise Iran’s birth rate, and reverse previous policies that enabled access to contraception and family planning. Instead, it mandates a full-court press by the government, media, schools, medical institutions, and not least the repressive apparatus of the state into every corner of Iranian society—to encourage, to train, and to force Iranian women to have more children—that is, to become incubators.

This latest assault adds insult to the injury of the Islamic Republic’s existing fundamentalist, patriarchal subordination and enslavement of women. (For a basic overview, see, “Fact Sheet: Women’s Rights in Iran,” Center for Human Rights in Iran, December 2020.)

People in the U.S. should look clearly at what’s happening to women in Iran. The two countries and their assaults on women are not identical, of course, but what Iran’s Islamic Republic is now carrying out IS essentially what the Trump-led fascist movement (with Christian fascist theocrats at its core) are fighting to enact right now: overturn Roe v. Wade, ban abortion, and then forcefully institute the open, misogynistic and all-around enslavement of women. It CAN—and IS—happening here.

Abortion: Further Restricted, Further Criminalized. Abortion was already a crime in Iran—only available in the first four months of pregnancy if three doctors found the pregnancy to be life-threatening to the mother or the fetus had severe disabilities. As a result, there are only an estimated 9,000 legal abortions a year in this country of 82 million people²—while some 300,000 to 600,000 women are forced to obtain illegal abortions each year!³

The new law cuts back these limited exceptions by adding more red tape and putting the decision in the hands of a panel made up of a judge, a medical doctor, and a forensic doctor instead of medical doctors acting on behalf of or potentially more supportive of the pregnant women.

The law also calls for punishing doctors who provide abortions illegally and people who distribute abortion pills. It even threatens to invoke the death penalty to prevent illegal abortions! The law “contains a vaguely formulated provision in article 61 which states that if carried out on a large scale”—apparently referring to abortion clinics or underground networks—“abortion would fall under the crime of ‘corruption on earth’ and would carry the death penalty,” the UN warns.⁴

Birth Control and Family Planning: Gutted. The new law:

• bars public healthcare providers from distributing free contraceptives
• prohibits voluntary sterilization in most cases
• restricts the availability of prenatal screening tests, which can detect genetic disorders (potentially leading to demands for abortion)
• mandates that couples who haven’t had children for a year or more undergo mandatory diagnosis of the “cause” of their “infertility” (Article 43)
• orders the Ministry of Health and Medical Education to train medical personnel and revise texts to promote pregnancy, childbearing and “reducing the interval between marriage and the birth of the first child ... and the distance between the birth of children” (Article 46)

Loans, Job Support, Even Cars and Other Inducements for Childbearing.

Mass Ideological Indoctrination Promoting Childbearing, Women’s Role in the Home. Some of the things state broadcasting agencies and outlets are required to do are:

• produce and broadcast content encouraging more childbearing and condemning women for remaining single, celibate, and having fewer children or abortions, and ban content that doesn’t
• prohibited from running ads promoting celibacy or families with two or fewer children and instead must encourage ads with families of three or more children
• increase education majors at universities focusing on women’s traditional role of managing the family and home

State Surveillance and Repression: Expanded. The new law expands the role of state police and intelligence in surveilling who accesses women’s healthcare and reproductive services:

• requires the Health Ministry, working with security agencies, to establish a database and collect information on anyone visiting a health center for fertility treatment, a pregnancy, labor or an abortion, “a move apparently designed to expand the monitoring of pregnancies and discourage abortions,” according to the UN.
• Iran’s Intelligence Ministry is directed to “identify illegal abortion cases, illegal sale of abortion drugs, and websites that provide the list of abortion centers.”

“The essential question at stake with the escalating attack on the right to abortion,” Bob Avakian writes, “is the fundamental status of the half of humanity that is female—whether they will be enslaved or emancipated.” (“The Fight for Abortion Rights and the Emancipation of Women,” revcom.us, February 1, 2022)

This is true in the USA. And it’s true in Iran.

FORCED MOTHERHOOD IS FEMALE ENSLAVEMENT!

Sources:

Iran: Repeal “crippling” new anti-abortion law – UN experts,” United Nations Human Rights, Office of the High Commissioner, November 16, 2021 

“UN Experts Call on Iran to Repeal ‘Crippling” New Anti-Abortion Law,’” Center for Human Rights in Iran, November 17, 2021

“Fact Sheet: Women’s Rights in Iran,” Center for Human Rights in Iran, December 2020

“Iran Doubles Down on Abortion and Contraception Restrictions,” Washington Post, December 1, 2021

For text of the law in Farsi, go to “Youthful Population and Protection of the Family.”