AFRICA/EGYPT - Coptic Church: Public institutions must help correct false religious concepts of reproduction

Wednesday, 27 September 2017 oriental churches   reproductive health  

Copts United

Cairo (Agenzia Fides) - State institutions must help counteract and correct concepts of reproduction that claim to be religious-based, and are also followed by the people. This is the wish expressed in the public speech by Father Paulos Sorour, representative of the Coptic Church in the Parliament .
The Orthodox Coptic Church – added the priest – has for many years indicated the paternity and maternity responsibility as criteria to follow in order to promote a harmonious development of society and above all the full realization of the potentiality of mutual affection and care of every family blessed by the birth of children.
For more than a quarter of a century, since the late 1970s, the average number of babies born by Egyptian women had dropped to 3. In the last six, seven years, the rate in Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world, has begun to rise up to 3.5 children per woman. In recent years, some Islamic preachers have issued fatwa forbidding any form of reproduction control. But according to scholars such as Gamal Serour, the Director of the International Islamic Center for Population Studies and Research at Al-Azhar University, these provisions did not have wide appeal and substantial effects on the Egyptian population. (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 27/9/2017)


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