FOR a rich man, his wallet is the most precious asset in his trousers; the poor man takes pride in something else that he deems fatter and more precious. The rich man uses the money in his pocket to caress his spouse, while the poor man has his own means to win the admiration of his woman. That is why Egyptian men aren't happy with the Government's suggestion to medically reduce the number of births in poor families. Fearing a violent reaction from poor Egyptian males, if they were compelled to lose the exceptional sign of their pride in the bedroom, poor women will pay, physically and psychologically, the price for allegedly saving their families from the grim spectre of poverty. According to a new bill approved by Parliament's Health Committee, poor women should be sterilised to stop their families getting bigger. The bill, which has been widely dismissed as a savage abuse of the rights of poor Egyptian women, will soon be submitted to Parliament for its final reading. The outrageous bill states that mandatory sterilisation could be an effective means to fight poverty and ease the economic burden on Egyptian families by minimising the number of their children. Worse, the bill also approves abortion in Egypt's conservative Muslim society: allegedly dreaming of a full-grown and healthy generation of children, the bill stipulates that pregnant woman will be allowed to have an abortion if her unborn child is not developing properly and could be born deformed. Defending his ruthless bill, Dr Hamdi el- Sayyed, a senior cardiologist and the Chairman of Parliament's Health Committee, claims that sterilisation will help reduce overcrowding in the small homes of poor families. Millions of Egyptian mothers in poor districts are likely to be the victims of this mandatory sterilisation. A report released by an active NGO discloses that about 48 million people in Egypt are poor, crowded into 1,109 slums across the country. In its pathetic report, the NGO also says that 45 per cent of Egyptians are living below the poverty line in squalid conditions, cruelly abandoned by the Government and denied economic and social services. Each family in this category is said to depend on an income of around $1 a day to survive on and support its children. The report further discloses that 46 per cent of Egyptian families do not know where their next meal is coming from. The outrageous ideas of fighting poverty and giving birth to a healthy generation of children will undoubtedly instigate a fierce battle in Parliament between MPs representing the ruling party and their tough opponents, members speaking on behalf of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Millions of conservative Egyptian families will also enter the fray and undoubtedly lend their support to the representatives of the Muslim fundamentalists in Parliament. Muslim clergymen and professors belonging to Al-Azhar (Egypt's highest seat of Islamic learning) will also campaign to disgrace the Health Committee, which is controlled by the ruling party and its chairman, who also belongs to the ruling party. El-Sayyed has already received a heavy body blow from the Egyptian Doctors' Association (EDA), of which he is also the Chairman. The EDA, controlled by doctors loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood, has castigated the bill as a disgusting and disdainful violation of Islam's teachings, which have very strict conditions for sterilisation and abortion, when the safety of the mother is jeopardised. Influential Muslim clergymen have also condemned the bill as a vicious revival of the savage, pre-Islamic culture in the Arabian Peninsula. The battle in Parliament will expand to make room for representatives from NGOs. Instead of improving the living conditions of poor families, the Government strongly believes that reducing their numbers is the best solution to stop their noisy cries for food and basic services. The late Indira Gandhi paid dearly for her mass sterilisation campaign in the Indian general elections in the 1970s.
