Thursday, February 26, 2009

Healthcare In Iran

As an aspiring health-care professional, I found this to be rather interesting. (I will admit to slight skepticism to some of the statistics, such as "Iran has a 100% vaccination rate," due to the fact such statistics may have been given by the government itself which has been known to lie before.) But the fact that they have exemplary health care is wonderful, and a very good place in this culture for women to advance. Health care, women's advancement, well-being of the people; whats not there for a feminist Buddhist to love?

On another feminist note, slide 8 talks about how the birth rate of women has gone down from 6 to 2. Anybody who knows anything about the connection between lower birthrates and higher education for women can agree this is (often) a good thing. I wish they mentioned how they did this. Did they do this via education and promoting safe birth control methods? (yay!)
Or did they do it through forced methods, such as sterilization? (boo!)
I think this culture is a fairly pro-life one, and I am unsure of the abortion statistics in Iran. (I'll look it up later when I have more time.)

It also says that this lowered birth rate has been fully supported by the country's religious leaders. Are they supporting it for the sake of the women's welfare, or because their population has exploded in the past 5 decades?

Anyways, check it out and let me know what you think:
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1874914_1836922,00.html

1 comment:

MyoChi said...

Wow!! For whatever reason, I did not think Iran would be so educated and aware in healthcare. Nice post, it created some awareness in me.