Islam scholars mull birth control
By Zaffar Abbas BBC News, Islamabad May 07, 2005 Condom Contraceptives are a contentious issue in Muslim societies Islamic religious scholars meeting in Pakistan have called for renewed efforts to tackle population growth. A joint declaration issued after talks in Islamabad stopped short of a clear statement in support of birth control. But the scholars urged fresh efforts to push population planning and better reproductive health services. They also agreed to back contraception for married couples, Pakistan's population minister said, but this was not mentioned in the declaration. The use of contraceptives for controlling population has remained a highly contentious issue among Muslim scholars. The more conservative Islamic leaders have openly campaigned against the use of condoms or other birth control methods, thus making population planning in many countries ineffective. They also strongly opposed abortion. 'Consensus' The aim of the Islamabad conference was to counter such moves by evolving a joint strategy for promoting the modern concept of population planning. More than 40 Islamic scholars from 21 countries discussed the issue for three days, but failed to agree on an effective strategy. Although a joint declaration issued at the end of the conference calls for fresh efforts to tackle the issue, it does not go into the specifics of the population controlling mechanism. But Pakistan's Population Minister, Chaudhry Shahbaz, says there was a consensus among the participating scholars on promoting the use of contraceptives among married couples. But the minister failed to explain why this issue was not incorporated in the joint declaration. A senior Pakistani official said even though all the participants were in favour of promoting the use of contraceptives they were reluctant to make it part of the joint declaration for fear of reprisals from the more conservative Islamic scholars in their respective countries. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Take a look at donorschoose.org, an excellent charitable web site for anyone who cares about public education! http://us.click.yahoo.com/_OLuKD/8WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
