Is family planning similar to killing of Children?

By Abdulrazaq Auwal Mungadi

In Nigeria, while the national campaign on the use of contraceptive and Child Birth Spacing (family planning) continues to gain momentum, religious misconception, as well as the cultural belief, seems to be a major challenge devastating the campaign which is aimed at decreasing mortality rate, maternal and infant morbidity across the 36 states including the Nation’s capital city.

The federal government launched a new national family planning campaign from 2017 to December 2020. The document was a strategy for increasing the use of modern contraceptives in the country.

The campaign which was launched during the 5th Annual National Family Planning Stakeholders Consultative Meeting in September 2017, proved that the country was working to give more women of reproductive age access to family planning services.

A look at the contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) of states such as Gombe, as highlighted by the 2018 edition of the National Demographic Health Survey (NDHS) shows that the campaign is walking towards the 36% CPR targets for the country.

While key actors from the Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), Nongovernmental Organizations (NGO), the Media among others continue to embark on advocacy calling on the government to increase funding for the delivery of the services as well as sensitization of the public. The buy-in of religious and traditional leaders is believed to be a major success for the campaign in terms of demand creation.

A look at the Islamic point of view in the case of family planning shows that it is not prohibited, even though the religion warns against the killing of children as uncovered by Late Asghar Ali Engineer, who died on 14th May 2013.

Asghar is an Indian reformist-writer and social activist who was internationally known for his work on liberation theology in Islam. In this article, he talks about the difference between family planning and the act of killing of Children which is preached against in Islam.

He said: “Many people, especially women, ask me if family planning is permissible in Islam. They say the Imams and Ulama say Qur’an prohibits family planning and quotes a verse which says, “And kill not your children for fear of poverty — We provide for them and you. Surely the killing of them is a great wrong.” (17:31).

According to the writer: “In no way this verse refers to family planning because it is talking of ‘killing’ and you kill one who exists. No law in the world will permit killing one who is already born and hence Qur’an rightly condemns the killing of children.

First of all, we should understand that in those days the problem of family planning did not exist nor that of population control. It is a very much modern problem that has arisen in nation-states. Most of the nation-states in the third world do not have economic means to support large populations and when we say supporting large populations it does not mean only feeding them but it also includes to educate them and also to provide proper health services. These are the basic duties of modern nation-states.

In fact, given the paucity of resources, it has become necessary to adopt family planning. When Qur’an was being revealed there was neither any properly organized state nor education or health services being provided by any state agency. It is important to note that Qur’an which shows eight ways to spend zakat, does not include education or health which is so essential for the state to provide today. Thus what Imam Razi suggests is not only very correct and also enhances the importance of family planning in modern times as small families can support better education and health services,” Asghar stated.

He further explained that: “It can be seen that in understanding Qur’an even very eminent imams and great scholars differed from each other. One should not impose one single meaning of a verse on all Muslims. It could be interpreted differently by different people in their own context and circumstances. Family planning is a modern need one should not reject it out of hand and quote Qur’anic verses out of context.

In fact, family planning does not mean killing children after they are born but to plan the birth of children in a way that parents can bear all the expenses for their education, health, living space, etc. In a proper manner. Qur’an also suggests that a child be suckled at least for two years and it is well known that as long as mother suckles she would not conceive. Thus indirectly Qur’an also suggests the spacing of a child.

Even in the hadith literature, we find that the Prophet (PBUH) permitted the prevention of conceiving in certain circumstances. When a person asked Prophet for permission for ‘azl (coitus interrupts) as he was going for a long journey along with his wife and he did not want his wife to conceive while traveling the Messenger of Allah allowed him.

In those days ‘azl was the only known method for planning of birth of a child. Today there are several methods available like the use of condoms and others,” the late reformist-writer said.

For me, I believe this article was to convince governments to spend more on the campaign to achieve the goals of reducing the rate of maternal mortality which is said to be on the increase and alarming as well. The article also adds to the work of stakeholders such as CSOs, NGOs, and others to work on sensitization to create awareness on the need to adopt the campaign which is believed to be a sure way of reducing maternal mortality by 40%.

Abdulrazaq Auwal Mungadi, writes from Gombe, North-east, Nigeria. (aarazaq1@gmail.com)