Tehran, YJC. Qazi Zadeh says a family’s biggest asset is their children and it is a pity to limit oneself in child number.
Health Minister Seyyed Hassan Qazi Zadeh who was speaking in
interview with Fars news agency providing comments on the country’s population
statistics said "I believe that it would be better if every Iranian family has 3
children. I say that as a father not as the Minister of Health, because I myself
have suffered.”
He added "Families with one kid take a lot of risk. Any human
being’s most precious capital is his child and it is a pity if one is rather
not well provided in those terms. I, too, would not think that I’d lost one
child of mine.”
"Even those with two children take a lot of risk. If, God
forbid, later on something happens and they are to suffer they will have lost
their entire life,” the minister went on to say.
Providing comments on contraceptive measures he said "As for
one who commits crime in those terms and causes psychological and biological
problems for families, they must be dealt with as the law says.”
The minister’s interview follows a series of campaigns by
ultra-governmental entities in Iran going on for about one year urging people
to heat up the country’s procreation rate.
The controversy was first sparked by the Supreme Leader ayatollah
Khamenei who said that the country’s population is growing old and families
need to procreate more.
This was followed by bills in the Majlis to punish
contraceptive measures such as vasectomy and the removal of subsidies from
condoms and contraceptive substances.