Top ulema endorses surgery for birth control

Top ulema endorses surgery for birth control

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's senior ulema Ali Yafie says he will
endorse vasectomies and other surgical practices as legitimate
forms of birth control, not that most have been made consistent
with Islam through new technological developments.

Yafie, the deputy chairman of the influential Indonesian
Council of Ulemas, said in a seminar on Saturday that advances in
medicine mean that couples using surgery as a means of birth
control can still conceive a child later if they change their
minds.

This, he explained, removed the chief objection raised by
ulemas that sterilization is permanent. He was speaking at a
seminar organized by the Indonesian Association for Secure
Contraception.

The National Family Planning Board announced last month that
the government is preparing a new campaign to promote surgery as
a form of birth control, because it is now considered to be the
most effective of all the alternatives.

The board said the first aim is to convince ulemas of the
merits of surgery, before launching the campaign nationwide.

Currently, the pill is still the most popular form of
contraception, used by 31.4 percent of the 22.83 million fertile
couples practicing family planning in Indonesia, according to an
official survey in March 1995. Less popular, but still common,
forms are IUDs, implants and surgery, which is the least popular
method.

Procedure

"Modern technology has made it possible to conduct a
(corrective) procedure, allowing couples to have children again
in the future if they want to," Yafie said.

Islam requires contraceptives that do not affect the condition
of the users, nor their sexual activities, he said.

PKMI chairman Djoko Rahardjo, who is also a vasectomy expert,
said a greater number of women are accepting surgery than men. He
cited national statistics between April and July that showed
26,491 birth control operations were carried out on women,
against only 3,672 on men.

Djoko said men are reluctant to have a vasectomy largely due
to ignorance but also because, compared to women, they are less
open with their doctors.

"Women consult doctors more often than their husbands do
because they see them when they are sick, and also when they take
their children in. Men only go when they're sick," Djoko said.

"Men think vasectomies will make them lose their 'virility'
and many still associate a vasectomy with impotence," he said,
adding that this was totally unfounded because impotence is
largely caused by psychological factors.

Vasectomy, he said, "is just a minor surgical procedure".

Citing one survey, Djoko reported that of those who had had a
vasectomy, 73 percent said their sex life had not been altered,
25 percent said it had heightened their sexual activities and two
percent said it had led to less sex.

"Many couples became more sexually active after surgery
because they felt they no longer had a burden or fear of
conceiving a child," he said, adding that the two percent who
claimed that vasectomy had adversely affected their sex life were
elderly.

He said surgery as a means of birth control has not been
popular in Indonesia because of opposition from religious leaders
and because it was not promoted by the government. (31)