Women, babies and chosen males
Prof. Dr. Esin Davutoğlu Şenol - @esenol
Humanity has struggled with epidemics throughout its history, and when it managed to control infectious diseases after the second half of the previous century, the average life expectancy of humans increased and, more importantly, the probability of survival of children under one year of age increased by 40%. More important than adding 30-40 years to the average life expectancy of a person, keeping a baby under one year of age alive meant gaining 66 years of life. But in the 1990s, one in every five babies born in Ethiopia and similarly poor countries still died. However, child mortality rates have fallen rapidly in low-income countries in the last 30 years.
The graph attached (source 1) shows the decline in infant mortality in Gambia and Afghanistan. The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), a public-private global health partnership, has a major role in protecting children’s health in these countries. In the 1990s, due to inadequate vaccine distribution, approximately 30 million children in poor areas were not receiving vaccines. To date, more than half of the world’s children have been vaccinated through this organization. However, the second-term president of the United States, which is a major provider of its funds, has announced that he will cut 80% of these funds.
In fact, when we examine in detail the situation in countries such as Europe and Japan, where infant mortality has always seemed low for the last 30 years, in the attached graph, it is understood that there has been a 70% decrease in infant mortality in those countries with vaccination. And even in these countries, 1% of babies still die. This means that if vaccination cannot be continued, babies in no country will be completely safe from diseases that have been controlled by vaccination.
The desire of all the capitalist males chosen in the world is to reach a paradise that they will establish only for themselves by reducing the fragile ones who are of no use to the world population and those in the geographies whose resources they want, not their people. The main battlefield of this ancient male desire is the female body. According to the statement of the UN executive board, 1.2 million children who are left unprotected against deadly diseases such as diphtheria and measles will die as a result of the cutting of this fund. On the one hand, when you think of those who spread the conspiracy that the world population will be reduced with COVID vaccines and those who believe them, it makes you laugh. Because it seems that the world population will be reduced by taking away the right of children in poor countries to access vaccines. I have written many times how poverty is a terrible health problem, that it kills early, and that it is a life of suffering due to stress, isolation, heavy and dangerous work throughout life. (https://www.birgun.net/makale/yoksulluk-ile-yasamak-587182 )
Africa is currently struggling with deadly infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, HIV, cholera, and Ebola. In fact, due to the connection they have established with the endless epidemics in that region and the world turning its back on them, they have a health system that prioritizes preventive health and acts extremely agile against epidemics. But the poor are left poor and isolated from the world. On the other hand, Africa is the region with the highest reproduction rate. They compensate for the loss of children by having many children. Comparatively, while the fertility rate in Nigeria is 6.1, it is 0.7 in South Korea, where this rate is the lowest. Although there are differences between regions in Turkey, according to data from 2025, this rate is the lowest it has ever been and is recorded as 1.48.
This rate is still above the average of 1.38 in the 23 European Union countries examined, placing us in ninth place. ( https://data.tuik.gov.tr/Bulten/Index?p=Birth-Statistics-2024-54196&dil=2 ) As such, while the distance between us and science is gradually widening, the chosen men who have no purpose or goal related to the maintenance of our biological vitality in health and peace, and who refrain from saying “vaginal birth”, commanded; “Give birth, women”.
In fact, not content with this command that could add to male violence, despite their reluctance but also with the realization that women cannot be dispensed with in the field of work with economic data, they even prepared unconditional civil service conditions for those who have given birth to three children. It is understood that unemployment and economic problems, which obviously have a significant effect on the fertility rate, will worsen.
Because of these problems, the age of marriage is moving up, the inability to earn enough income to support the education and health of more than one child, and they do not worry much about the mental and physical health of women. Because in fact, the fertility rate and “real reproductive health” are not directly related and are inversely proportional to the economic level both in the world and in our country.
As poverty deepens, more children are born at the expense of the life and health of women and their unborn babies, with the intuition that they will compensate for their dead children and have children who will take care of them in later years. It is understood that in Turkey, the concern of raising good children is more prevalent for cities and the educated segment, and the fertility rate is decreasing. In other words, the call to “give birth to women, we will reward you” has a clear target and is right on target in terms of its own strategies. In short, it is a “pro-family political strategy” and does not need to include any expectations or regulations regarding the health of either the unborn baby or the mother. According to the WHO report published in 2023 on real reproductive health, one in every six people in the world is infertile.
Air and food pollution, plastics, pesticides, rising temperatures, stress and “Sexually Transmitted Diseases” directly affect reproductive health, while diseases such as HPV and COVID indirectly affect reproductive health. Sexually transmitted diseases are increasing due to factors such as ignorance, unregistered sex work, and labeling. We do not have a health policy regarding the factors that negatively affect women and babies’ health and are associated with increasing infertility. In fact, we cannot even talk about these problems under increasing pressure. However, the factors that directly affect real reproductive health shed light on the situation in the country without the need for real data.
Although I cannot make room for the possibility that they have read and understood, we are being dragged into a dystopia like the novel “The Handmaid” by Margaret Atwood, which transcends the ages. The acceptable woman is the one who both gives birth and works, who has given up on herself. As for the countries that seem to be the best for being born and surviving; Japan and the Scandinavian countries - Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark - are all among the best. As for the USA, which has cut the right to life allowances for babies in Africa and Asia, the probability of a baby born there dying is approximately three times higher than in Finland, Japan or Sweden, and the probability of a baby born in France and England dying is twice as high as in these countries.
The point is that being born in a country that cannot take its eyes off war and unsavory fortunes, or that is not blinded by them, means that the first of the two dice you throw in life is not very lucky. In this case, the second dice we throw in the men we choose should be a duke.
SOURCE
1.Hannah Ritchie (2025) - “Children in rich countries are much less likely to die than a few decades ago, but we rarely hear about this progress” Published online at OurWorldinData.org.
https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-rich-countries-decline
3. https://ourworldindata.org/where-are-babies-at-lowest-risk-of-dying
4. https://www.who.int/news/item/04-04-2023-1-in-6-people-globally-affected-by-infertility
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