NEW DELHI, September 16, 2004 (CWNews.com/LifeSiteNews.com) – Top Islamic leaders in India are rejecting demands that Muslims embrace the government’s family-planning norms, which propose a limit of 2 children per family.
Hindu nationalists and family-planning advocates have joined to pressure Muslim families to adopt birth-control measures, after release of census figures that showed a rapid increase in India’s Muslim population. Islamic leaders are rejecting that pressure.
“It is not proper to stop the birth of those whom Allah has destined to be born,” said Maulana Rabey Hasan Nadvi, president of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board. Meanwhile, two prominent Muslim groups have issued a fatwa against sex-determination tests, which are frequently used in India to avoid the birth of female babies. “Children are gifts of Allah and abortion amounts to murder. If any Muslim resorts to sex determination tests then he is a sinner,” the fatwa declared.