The Bill to Increase Fertility Rates and Prevent Population Decline, currently undergoing amendments before the Guardian Council (a step prior to official implementation), would “entrench discriminatory practices and set the rights of women and girls in Iran back by decades” Amnesty International reports. The bill would outlaw voluntary sterilization, currently believed to be the second most common method of birth control in the Islamic Republic, block access to information about contraception and remove state funding for Iran’s family planning programme. The bill appears to be aimed at boosting population. Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International characterizes the effect of the laws as: “promoting a dangerous culture in which women are stripped of key rights and viewed as baby-making machines rather than human beings with fundamental rights to make choices about their own bodies and lives.” The law passed in Parliament by an “overwhelming” majority last year, and is part of a larger legislative population growth strategy of the Iranian state which also includes bills which will require private and public entities to prioritize the hiring of men with children over men without children and women with children.