Abortion in Iran

Abortion in Iran has been the subject of internal controversy for many years. Iran's abortion policy has been notoriously quick to change in accordance with changes in the regime; most significantly, the more modern policies developed by the government of Reza Shah under his family planning programs and moves towards more Western social policy were quickly deposed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after he took power from the deposed shah in the Iranian Revolution of 1979.

Abortion was first legalized in 1978. In April 2005, the Iranian Parliament approved a new bill easing the conditions by also allowing abortion in certain cases when the fetus shows signs of handicap, and the Council of Guardians accepted the bill in 15/June/2005. Abortion is currently legal in cases where the mother's life is in danger, and also in cases of fetal abnormalities that makes it not viable after birth (such as anencephaly) or produce difficulties for mother to take care of it after birth, such as major thalassemia or bilateral polycystic kidney disease. There is no need for a consent from the father and request and consent of mother with approval of three specialist physicians and final acceptance by legal medicine center suffices. Legal abortion is allowed only before 19th week of pregnancy.

Much of the controversy has historically stemmed from Iran's status as a theocracy as it was established after the 1979 revolution; many policies, including those concerning social topics, are based on sharia law as interpreted from the Qur'an through the nation's Shi'a legal philosophy. While abortion is not actually referenced in the Qur'an, infanticide is specifically condemned, and this has been used as an argument to keep abortion illegal in most or all cases in which it might be sought. The sections of the Qur'an that detail the importance of health for women have been used to combat this argument, and have been moderately successful at changing the reactionary legislation against abortion enacted after 1979. Nowadays, most Islamic legal schools of thought hold that the ensoulment of a fetus takes place four months after conception, which has extended the discussion of abortion in many nations and communities that base their judicial codes off of Islamic law; in Iran, a consensus has recently developed that abortion is legitimate if it is before this four-month mark.

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