Legal Research Quarterly

Legal Research Quarterly

A Comparative Analysis of the Concept of Bio-Citizenship with Emphasis on the Law on Family Protection and Youthful Population

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Mahdi Moradi Berelian 1
Mohammad Ghsem Tangestani 2
1 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law & Political Science, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar, Iran. Corresponding Author Email: m.moradib@umz.ac.ir
2 Associate Professor, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran
10.48308/jlr.2025.240575.2922
Abstract
Introduction
Recent developments in biotechnology, demographic policy and reproductive medicine have changed the classical relationship between citizenship, the body and public law. The human body is no longer only a private or medical matter; it has become a legal site through which the state grants benefits, imposes duties, narrows choices and defines public interest. Bio-citizenship names this shift. It describes a form of citizenship in which legal recognition and social responsibility are shaped by biological features such as health, fertility, sex, genetic information and bodily vulnerability. This article examines the Iranian Law on Family Protection and Youthful Population, adopted in 2021, as an important legal expression of this transformation. Its central question is how this law constructs a biological model of citizenship and what consequences it has for human dignity, bodily autonomy, reproductive freedom, biological justice and fundamental rights. The aim is to clarify the legal limits of state intervention in the body, reproduction and social continuity.
Methods
The study uses a descriptive-analytical and comparative method. Its analytical part examines the main provisions of the Law on Family Protection and Youthful Population, including the National Population Headquarters, birth-related incentives, maternity benefits, restrictions on contraception, rules on sterilization and the legal-medical mechanism for abortion. These provisions are read through the lens of public law, human dignity, and rights theory. The theoretical part draws on biopolitics, bare life, dignity, autonomy, biological justice and communicative participation to explain how the body becomes a subject of public power. The comparative part considers Germany, France, Canada and the United Kingdom, not as models to be copied, but as legal experiences that show different ways of regulating biological life. The comparison is organized around four criteria: the constitutional place of human dignity, the permissible scope of state intervention, the role of informed consent and the existence of social and institutional oversight. The research materials include legislation, institutional practice and interdisciplinary studies on biomedicine and citizenship.
Results and Discussions
Bio-citizenship is not only a sociological description. It points to a bigger change in public law: the citizen is increasingly viewed not merely as a voter, legal subject or member of a political community, but as a body that can be measured, protected, directed, optimized and, at times, controlled. Biological life becomes a language through which the state allocates benefits, defines duties, produces risks and frames public interest. This transformation can be emancipatory when it strengthens the right to health, supports access to infertility treatment, and prevents biological discrimination. It becomes problematic, however, when legal status and social entitlements are tied to biological performance, especially fertility, maternity or conformity with demographic objectives. The central normative issue is therefore not whether the state may adopt population and health policies, but whether such policies remain bounded by dignity, autonomy, equality and proportionality. Comparative experiences reveal different ways of drawing these boundaries. Germany offers a dignity-based model of biological regulation. Its legal order places human dignity at the center of health, family, reproductive and parental policies, while state support remains framed by proportionality, equality and bodily self-determination. France reflects a republican-institutional model. Through bioethics legislation and specialized agencies, French law seeks to reconcile reproductive freedom with the prohibition of commodification and the constitutional value of dignity. Canada connects bio-citizenship with the right to health, informed consent, the prohibition on the commercial exploitation of the body, and voluntary participation in biobanking and biomedical research. The United Kingdom relies on the National Health Service, soft regulation and medical ethics to shape the responsible health citizen. These experiences suggest that biological regulation gains legitimacy when collective interests are joined with freedom, transparency, participation and anti-discrimination guarantees. The Iranian law presents a more ambivalent picture. On its surface, the Law on Family Protection and Youthful Population appears supportive and family-oriented. However, its internal logic places the fertile body, especially the female body, at the center of public policy. The creation of the National Population Headquarters, the distribution of benefits based on childbirth, the legal emphasis on maternal roles, restrictions on contraceptive services, the prohibition of sterilization except in narrow cases, and the transfer of abortion-related decisions to judicial-medical mechanisms all point to a specific form of biological citizenship. In this model, the ideal citizen is implicitly the reproductive citizen whose body aligns with the state's demographic aims. The difficulty lies in the law’s weak distinction between support, encouragement, regulation and coercion. Once this distinction fades, demographic policy may shift from public welfare to the governance of bodies. The law also reveals deficiencies in dignity-based reasoning, informed consent, biological justice and social oversight. Some provisions link social benefits to reproductive performance, potentially classifying citizens by fertility. Others place bodily autonomy and reproductive health under the pressure of a collective population objective. Institutionally, the concentration of authority in the National Population Headquarters, limited reporting duties, weak participation by women and affected groups, and the absence of impact assessments increase the risk of politicization of the body. The article therefore proposes a framework for citizens’ biological rights; legislative revision of contraception, sterilization and abortion rules according to necessity and proportionality; separation between macro-level planning and micro-level bodily intervention; and an independent body to monitor biological rights, receive complaints and publish reports.
Conclusion
The article concludes that the Law on Family Protection and Youthful Population marks an important entry of Iranian public law into bio-citizenship, but this entry has not yet been adequately shaped by dignity, bodily freedom and civic participation. Demographic policy is defensible only when it does not reduce individuals to instruments of statistical goals and when it balances collective interests with personal rights. A rights-based model of bio-citizenship in Iran requires moving beyond a merely population-oriented approach toward a framework in which the human body is treated as a bearer of dignity and rights, not as an object of political possession

Highlights

·         The Law on Family Protection and Youthful Population, by linking benefits, restrictions and oversight mechanisms to the fertile body, represents a population-oriented form of bio-citizenship in Iranian public law.

·         The comparative analysis shows that the legitimacy of biological policies in advanced legal systems depends on the simultaneous protection of human dignity, informed consent, proportionality of state intervention, non-discrimination and institutional accountability.

·         The realization of bio-citizenship in Iran requires revising this law around bodily rights, reproductive freedom, biological justice and civil participation, so that the individual is treated as a dignified subject of public law rather than an instrument of demographic policy.

Keywords
Bio-citizenship
Human Dignity
Law on Family Protection and Youthful Population
Biopolitics
Subjects
 
References
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  • Receive Date 06 July 2025
  • Revise Date 19 August 2025
  • Accept Date 27 August 2025