• family planning service provision
• reproductive health politics
• sterilisation
• Iran

As a policy response to the low fertility rate, Iran's Parliament proposed Bill 446, which bans surgical sterilisations used solely to limit births. The Bill's aim is to raise the country's low fertility rate that has fallen to 1.6 births per woman.1 There is no doubt that Iran's population control policy needs to be revised to increase fertility levels, however recent data (Figure 1) indicate that the draconian policy of banning sterilisation will not raise the fertility rate, and it may also adversely increase unintended births, induced abortions and maternal mortality. …