Tell Turkey's President That Women Don't Have to Bear Children to Be Fulfilled

  • by: Lynn Hamilton
  • recipient: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

You might hope that world leaders would stick to doing their jobs: abating poverty and protecting against invaders. But In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has decided it's his business to tell women how to use their time and organize their lives.

In a recent Sunday speech honoring the opening of the Turkey's Women's and Democracy Association, Erdogan pronounced that women who don't have children and work around the house are "incomplete." Lamentably, it's not Erdogan's first attack on women. He is on record as calling the use of birth control treasonous and saying that a woman is "above all else a mother."

Please join me in asking Erdogan to retract his statement and recognize that women have the right to define their own success.

Dear President Erdogan:


I was shocked and sickened to hear that you told childless women in Turkey that they are somehow incomplete. The decision to have or not have children is a personal one that women should make with their husbands and family. It really isn't something that a politician needs to weigh in one. Beyond that, though, you have basically sent women back to the nineteenth century when women were really second class citizens, mostly because they couldn't control their reproduction.


Some women are wonderful mothers. And they should have children. But to tell all women that they need children is a hideous thing to do. Some women have health issues that make it dangerous to have children. Others do not have the temperament. We need look no further than the number of children who are abused to see that some women are not cut out for motherhood. Please retract your statement and recognize that women have the right to define their own success.

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