The institutional history of family planning in Turkey

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This study focuses on the institutional history of family planning in Turkey and the ways it shaped the discursive trends to state ends. Family planning has been used to this day for different purposes under changing socio-economic circumstances, from the establishment of the Turkish Republic until the present day. The state policy has utilized family planning for promoting reproduction, thus maintaining a certain population growth in the early decades of the Republic, while the emphasis changed over time from pronatalist policy to the anti-natalist policy making, especially after the 1960s. In all periods, feminist sensitivities and gender specific considerations have never been granted their due importance. With the contemporary focus on neo-liberal health reforms, family planning has been further marginalized in state discourse.