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Iran earned international applause for its reproductive policies, but Tehran's concern about a shrinking population has spurred efforts to reverse them. Iranians say 'Not so fast.'

A prominent green arrow paintedon the ground once led the way to one of Irans largest family planning clinics so that men seeking free vasectomies could find their way without asking embarrassing questions.

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For most of the next two decades, thousands of men followed that arrow, taking advantage of a reproductive health policy so successfulat curbing a soaring birth ratethat the United Nations trumpeted Iran as a model for the Islamic world.

Today it is a faint shadow. Free vasectomies ended two years ago and Iranian officials, anxious about the impact of a plummeting birthrate, are encouraging a new baby boom.

In a shrinking population, the government sees not just economic decline, but national weakness.Last month former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili launched a poster campaign bearing the slogan, Population decline equals decline in military power.

And just days ago one cleric said on television that Iranians should start making babies immediately, aiming for numbers linked to the Shiite faith like the eighth Imam Reza, or the 12 holy imams, or the 14 infallible figures.

We dont accept less than five, Ayatollah Mohammad Hosseini Ghazvini told Velayat TV. Sotonight...start the operation of having five, eight, 12, and 14 children, which, God willing, will be a big slap in the faceof this nasty one-child culture.

The strident declarations mask the far more nuanced debate underway in parliament and the health ministry, private vasectomy clinics, and even sharedtaxis, where riders blanche and joke at suggestions on the radio that a new "maximum-baby" policy will be a panacea for Irans problems.There is great skepticism about the wisdom of such a dramaticreversal after years of pridefully enjoying plaudits for population control policies that other nations took decades to achieve.

Original post:
Iran ends free vasectomies with 'maximum-baby' push