October 18-2013
Sex can be a huge problem in the Islamic Republic. For one thing, if a woman gives birth out of wedlock, the authorities will not issue a birth certificate, and the illicit offspring then becomes a person without a country.
The result if to make an abortion a popular option if an unmarried woman finds herself pregnant. Abortions are legal in the Islamic Republic—but only when the mother’s health is endangered, not when she is simply unmarried.
The Asahi Shinbun, one of Japan’s major national dailies, pursued the forbidden topic of pre-marital sex in Iran and concluded that the Islamic Republic’s sex rules clash with the reality of life in Iran.
Reporter Manabu Kitagawa, a male, interviewed, by email, a 25-year-old Iranian woman in Tehran who had an unwanted pregnancy three years ago when she was a university student.
“I couldn’t talk about it with my parents or close friends, and I even considered suicide,” she said. “I cursed this country where they force Islamic law on us.”
She tried abortion pills and got an illegal injection aimed at inducing abortion. When her bleeding would not stop, a hospital finally gave her an abortion.
Kitagawa said researchers report there are 80,000 abortions each year in Iran, of which 80 percent are illegal operations mainly involving unmarried women. When including methods such as drug-induced miscarriages, the total number of abortions would be even higher.
Kitagawa wrote, “One of the reasons why unmarried women are forced to seek out abortions is that even if they do give birth, the authorities won’t issue a birth certificate, and the child will be treated as a person with no nationality.”
Beyond that, he said, “The gap between Iranian youths and the ideals demanded by the religious establishment is only widening.”
The 25-year-old woman with the unwanted pregnancy became impregnated by a classmate because neither knew anything about contraception.
“He invited me over to his house to study together,” she said. “We drank alcohol, danced to music and then ended up having sex.” He did not abandon the woman but helped her when she found she was pregnant.
Under Iranian law, those who have sex outside marriage may be stoned to death if married and lashed if unmarried.
The woman said she visited 15 hospitals asking for an abortion, but they all refused because the law restricts abortions to cases in which there is a risk to the mother’s health.
Desperate, the woman bought 10 abortion pills and got the injection from an illicit dealer at a black market for pharmaceuticals in Tehran. The father earned the money to pay the required 5 million rials ($150) from his part-time job.
“I took the pills and put the injection in my vein,” she said. “The bleeding wouldn’t stop for three days.” She went to a hospital, which finally gave her an abortion.
The woman married a different man last October, but they have not yet been able to have a child. As she worries that “maybe the abortion made it impossible,” her anger boils over at the police who stop unmarried couples from dating in public.
“By encouraging men and women to meet each other at home, they unintentionally promote unhealthy relationships,” she said. “It’s an adverse effect.”
In Iran, unmarried parents who cannot get an abortion generally end up abandoning the child or giving it to an orphanage. Around 300 children ranging in age from a few months to seven years live at the Ameneh Orphanage on the north side of Tehran. The orphanage told Kitagawa 70 percent of them were born to parents not married to one another.
A University of Tehran instructor said, “Almost all of my students are dating someone, and more university students are living together in secret. Unlike their parents’ generation, they have a strong desire to do as they please.”
One reason for the change is that the economy makes it difficult for young people to marry, so more and more are postponing marriage to their late 20s. That inevitably means more pre-marital sex.
Hamid-Reza Shir-moham-madi, a 42-year-old doctor, said sex education at school is confined to a rendition of religious values, such as “not associating with members of the opposite sex until marriage.”
Shir-mohammadi said, “We shouldn’t regard sexual issues as taboo. Instead I want [the government] to set up a team of experts to devise measures that take into account the reality of the situation as well as educational concerns.”