title: Iran's shift in family planning policies: concerns and challenges.
abstract: Iran's significant success in implementing Family Planning (FP) during the past 25 years, has made it a role model in the world. The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) in Iran has dropped from 6.5 in 1960 to 1.6 in 2012, which is well below the targeted value of 2.2 for the country. Iran's success story, however, did not merely root in the implementation of FP programs. In other words, families' strong tendency to limit fertility and delayed marriages had an undeniable role in decreasing the TFR. On the other hand, Iranian policy-makers are very concerned about such a decrease and have recently restricted access to contraception, while outlawing any surgery that reduces fertility. This paper, tries to highlight the pros and cons of such restrictive policies, and argue that the policy-makers might be jeopardizing the success of Iran's FP program by overestimating its role in the TFR reduction rate.
authors.affiliation: School of Population and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada. ; Regional Knowledge Hub, and WHO Collaborating Center for HIV Surveillance, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Karamouzian
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Modeling in Health, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran.
authors.forename: Hamid
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sharifi
authors.affiliation: Regional Knowledge Hub, and WHO Collaborating Center for HIV Surveillance, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran.
authors.forename: Ali Akbar
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Haghdoost
keywords: Family Planning (FP); Health Policy; Iran; Population Control; Total Fertility Rate (TFR)