The Associated Press reported that mullahs in Afghanistan, which has one of the highest maternal death rates in the world, are promoting the use of birth control:
Quotes were used from the Quran to promote breast-feeding for two years, while local religious leaders, or mullahs, joined community and health leaders to explain the importance of spacing out births to give moms and babies the best chance at good health.
In total, 37 mullahs endorsed using contraceptives as a way to increase the time between births, some delivering the message during Friday prayers. The mullahs' major concerns centered on safety and infertility, the report said.
While Islam doesn't object to birth control the way that Catholicism does, it's nice to see a religious argument for the idea that spacing out children is better for the health of the children. And in the past, when women breast fed children longer and exclusively, they're pregnancies were spaced apart. The outreach program in Afghanistan was expensive, but it worked, and the government hopes to spread the program across the country.
-- Monica Potts
