Erdogan: abortion is murder

Wednesday, May 30, 2012 According to the Turkish Daily Bugle, Prime Minister Erdogan has made some strong statements against abortion. Here is a small excerpt:  Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday he considered abortion as "murder." "I am a prime minister who is against Caesarean births. I consider abortion as murder," Erdogan was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency. Erdogan further stated that "every abortion is Uludere", referring to the botched air raid that had claimed 34 lives. "Nobody should have the right to allow this. You either kill a baby in mother's womb or you kill it after birth. There's no difference." In Turkey, abortion is legal during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. The woman's consent is required but if the woman is married, the husband's consent is also required. The New York Times also covered this story, going into some more detail: Calling abortion an act of murder and an insidious plan to reduce the Turkish population, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Tuesday for legislation to restrict women’s access to the procedure. Since 1983, abortion has been legal in Turkey for up to 10 weeks after conception, with emergency abortions allowed for medical reasons after that.Mr. Erdogan proposed outlawing all abortions that are not medically necessary, and limiting medically necessary abortions to the first eight weeks after conception, according to NTV, a private television news network. “There is no difference in killing the fetus in a mother’s womb or killing a person after birth,” Mr. Erdogan said Tuesday, echoing comments he made Friday at the opening of a hospital in Istanbul and on Saturday to a group of female politicians in Ankara, the capital.

Coups, Constitutions and the 27th of May

Sunday, May 27, 2012 It's May 27, and Spring has arrived at the Borderlands Lodge! Okay, maybe not. I even had to shovel snow off of the Bordermobile in order to go buy some eggs this morning. I was wearing shorts and flip-flops, though, so at least it felt somewhat Spring-like. It's the day before Memorial Day in the USA but in Turkey they're marking a different kind of memory. On this date in 1960, Turkey would experience the first of a series of military interventions, when Prime Minister Adnan Menderes was overthrown in a coup.

Remember Ergenekon?

Saturday, May 26, 2012 I saw something about Ergenekon in the Turkish Daily Tattler yesterday. It seemed so quaint: so people are still talking about Ergenekon! The piece involved an interview with Yaprak Gürsoy from Istanbul's Bilgi University. Here are some of the things she had to say: TDT: Give us a summary of your findings. Gürsoy: The Ergenekon investigation and trials are a double-edge sword for Turkish democracy. They are good in a sense that it’s possible to observe that with these trials, public attitudes toward the military have began to change. People have less confidence in the Turkish military. But it is also possible to observe that they are leading to polarization in Turkish politics, especially between supporters of political parties, and that’s not good for Turkish democratic consolidation. TDT: Your study also suggests that there is also a negative consequence of Ergenekon case.Gürsoy: It leads to polarization. When you investigate which groups believe the Ergenekon terrorist organization exists, you can see a sharp difference between political party supporters. Those who voted for the AKP [Justice and Development Party] in the 2011 elections overwhelmingly think that the Ergenekon terror organization exists. Most of those who voted CHP [Republican People’s Party] think that Ergenekon does not exist and that the case rests on fabricated evidence. There is a sharp polarization between CHP and AKP supporters. Read the whole interview for context, but I found it interesting that the "negative" potential of Ergenekon was that it leads to "polarization!"