Ahmadinejad’s New Push: Make Babies, Make $950 Plus
EmailABC's Lara Setrakian reports from Dubai, UAE: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is urging, even paying to make more babies. A new policy to encourage population growth is reportedly offering $950 per child plus a stipend of $95 each year until the age of 18. He called family planning "the realm of the secular world," with no place in what Iran calls its Islamic Republic. The policy fits Ahmadinejad's M.O. of cash handouts, using Iran's massive oil wealth on subsidies that benefit his middle and lower class fan base. But it reverses Iran's longtime policy of trying to limit large families, after a baby boom that lasted throughout the 1980s. In the 1990s the country encouraged vasectomies and manufactured condoms as a state-sponsored way to control the population. That's left Iran with a demographic bulge of 20-somethings — of Iran's 75 million people, more than 60 percent are younger than 30 years old, putting a strain on the job pool and some social services. That's in part why Ahmadinejad's pro-baby finance package has caused so much controversy in Iran. With an estimated 10 million people living under the poverty line and the economy penned in by sanctions, there's not enough as is to go around.
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“He called family planning “the realm of the secular world,” with no place in what Iran calls its Islamic Republic.” Sounds interestingly close to what some advocate in the U.S.; a theocracy (“Christian nation”) in which “family planning” is seen as a secular evil. Such rhetoric has no place in a true Republic, lest we forget.
Posted by: Raven | July 29, 2010, 6:14 pm 6:14 pm
Nobody ever accused Ahmadinejad of being the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Poor Iran.
Posted by: Nick | July 29, 2010, 7:00 pm 7:00 pm
“With an estimated 10 million people living under the poverty line and the economy penned in by sanctions, there’s not enough as is to go around.”….Well, that’s O.K., let ‘em eat cake!
Posted by: CatWoman | July 29, 2010, 7:02 pm 7:02 pm
Idiotic, is the only word that can describe him. How can a family support a family with only $950 and maintain that kid for $95/yr for 18 years; keep in mind the annual inflation rate of 25-40%. can’t even buy baby food with that money to support a baby till they are 5.
Posted by: Ali | July 29, 2010, 7:32 pm 7:32 pm
People forget that the youth of Iran are the fiercest opponents of the regime. Iran’s birth rate has catastrophically fallen. This means in 50 years, Iran’s population will start an aging trend that would hamper’s the country’s growth and would put pressure on services for the retired and the senior citizens. He is doing the right thing for the wrong reason, in an inappropriate way.
Posted by: darius | July 29, 2010, 7:33 pm 7:33 pm
People…come on he is breeding a new generation of warriors for Islam. Surplus youth from poor families are more than willing to die as soldiers of Islam ( and make 10k for their family). This is a move against the west.
Posted by: Jake | July 29, 2010, 8:02 pm 8:02 pm
Let’s see…large, poor population under 30 creates baby boom amidst sanctions and political unrest = disaster!
Posted by: Gerald | July 30, 2010, 10:27 am 10:27 am
Why does Ahmadinejad want Iranians to have more babies? Is he planning for a war in which he knows he is going to need more population?
Posted by: Onikeh | July 31, 2010, 3:20 pm 3:20 pm
Oh great……at a time when every government in the world should be discouraging babies, to save our distressed planet from human overpopulation…..every government is trying to do just the opposite…..and demonstrating their total disregard for the planet.
Fools abound.
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | August 1, 2010, 11:25 am 11:25 am
Yeah – like we need more radical Islamic people in the world that hate the west. Most of the people in Iran are poor and being held back by the Islamic clerics in the govt and its nutty president. These people need freedom from the suffocating religion of Islam and the relentless push towards nuclear weapons. The weapons don’t help the people and isolate the country from the world.
Posted by: Bob | August 5, 2010, 8:09 am 8:09 am
What does a narrow-minded tyrant like him care about the poverty and suffering of the Iranian people?! He’d rather have more “canon fodder,” that’s what!
Posted by: judy | August 17, 2010, 5:15 am 5:15 am
that’s less thn $3000 in total when the baby reaches 18. as if you’d want to go ahead with having a baby JUST for that amount of money..
Posted by: hoda | October 18, 2010, 6:18 pm 6:18 pm