Anti-Choicers seem to believe that a country which criminalizes not only abortion, but contraception as well (since both promote the evil sin of sex) would be a wonderful, far more moral country in which women would stop having sex for pleasure and spit out lots of babies and love them and cherish them and worship the all-loving Jebus Chips in the sky. Little do they know, or care, a country has already done this. Their world had been realized. And it was terrible. The damage is still there, after years of abortion and contraceptives being re-legalized.
We must not forget Romania. Lest the Anti-Choicers will force us to repeat it in the name of God.
It was October 1966. Nicolae Ceausescu was about to sign the decree that would define his leadership, his rule over Romania. What he was about to do would make many anti-choicers jizz in their pants from happiness. Decree 770, the Anti-Choice dream law, was signed and put into effect immediately. Suddenly abortions and contraceptives were no longer legal. And everyone was happy because Anti-Choicers know that if they get what they want, everyone will be happy and more moral and children will be loved and women will be treated with respect.
If you're anti-choice, I'd stop reading here so that your happy bubble of rainbow sparkles while abortion is illegal is still in tact. Still reading? Maybe you'll learn something. Or maybe you'll just read this and justify everything that happened by saying, "Oh well, that's Romania and couldn't possibly ever happen here ever ever ever." Or just not care at all, because that's what you do best. ;)
My fellow Choicers, I must ask you: Have you wiped the vomit off your computer screen yet? If not, how are you reading this? Perhaps you didn't vomit because you're used to anti-choicers destroying lives.
Well, get a bucket just in case. We're in for a wild ride.
Decree 770 criminalized abortion, made women, children, and families suffer, and overall made anti-choicers jizz their pants every other day at the amount of control the government had over the private lives of their citizens, and especially the wombs of the women. I wouldn't be surprised if the Vatican wanted Ceausescu to be the leader of every other country, or change their name to the Ceausescu Church. Really I wouldn't.
But really, in all seriousness:
Ceausescu's policy to increase the Romanian population failed to achieve its goal. It imposed pain, injury, and death on Romanian women. It also created another problem, which will be with the country for 80 years or so -- the short, sharp baby boom of '67.Source
Abortion was illegal minus a few strict situations:
There were exceptions to the anti-abortion law. An abortion could be obtained if: (1) a woman’s life was in danger, the woman suffered from serious physical, psychological or sensory problems, or if one of the parents suffered from a grave hereditary disease; (2) the woman was over the age of 45; (3) the mother had already given birth to at least 4 children and still had them in her care; (4) the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest. Source
The birth rate doubled in 1967 from what it had been in 1966. And as a result of Decree 770, celibacy was not a good choice for many. Ceausescu imposed a "Celibacy tax," a tax on people over the age of 25 that didn't have any children. He also forced women of childbearing age to undergo medical exams (being pulled from work every 1-3 months for them) with a government official present, which the citizens appropriately called them "menstrual police." These exams were meant to make sure that they caught women during pregnancy as early as possible, and all miscarriages were investigated to some extent and constantly under government suspicion.
Women turned to illegal abortions to control their own fertility. Not to mention the fact that the maternal mortality rate skyrocketed to the highest rate in Europe since so many malnourished women (due to poverty, malnourishment was extremely common, which is also why miscarriages were common) died during pregnancy or childbirth. It's really no wonder that women turned to illegal abortions. Many of them already had children, and had been forced, by poverty, to give their child to the state and the children were put in orphanages, a subject that I will discuss later.
As I'm sure you expect, abortions were not safe by any means:
Out of despair, women in Romania did whatever they could to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy. They used salt, detergent, medicinal plants, hot baths, they introduced needles in themselves, or did anything that would eliminate the pregnancy. There was a time when lemon juice was the most popular contraceptive method. Since women’s menstruation was monthly monitored by state authorities, detecting pregnancies as soon as possible was a must. Usually, they were detected through old-fashion methods such as using a frog. Source
Women were not the only ones to suffer. Many children were put into orphanages, not because they were actually orphans, but because their parents couldn't take care of them. No one adopted them either. They are considered the "lost generation" of Romania, and a sad reminder of Ceausescu's gruesome reign.
Let's take a look at what they've been through and had to say:
Ioan Sidor is a soft-spoken man who works with disabled and disadvantaged children in the Romanian city of Bacau.
"I try to offer them something I never had myself when I was a child - affection and attention," he said.
Ioan grew up in one of Romania's 600 notorious institutions - a by-product of then-President Nicolae Ceausescu's overwhelming desire to increase the population. Source
Here's what one of the children had to say about his upbringing:
I was sent to an orphanage when I was five. My mother had died and my father was an alcoholic.
There was a strong communist philosophy there. Every morning we had to sing national songs with a picture of Ceausescu at the front of the room. If you didn't stand up straight, you were beaten.
As a child I grew up with a lot of emotional problems. I had a lot of anger inside me. I used to think: 'Why me? What had I done?' I tried to find someone to blame.
I used to get beaten a lot as a child. When I was about 10 or 11 I started wetting the bed, and they used to hit me a lot for that.
Finally I couldn't contain it, and I exploded. I started stealing things and when I was 15 I tried to kill someone. He was in a coma for a week, and I was very lucky he didn't press charges.
After that I was labelled a criminal. Everyone said I was bad, and I believed them. I thought I was just garbage.
In 1996, I left the institution, and came to Bucharest. I didn't want to be a street child, but I still became one.
I wanted love and a stable identity. But I couldn't find it. On the outside I was strong, but in the inside I was crying. It was like I wore a mask every day.
In 1999 I met a social worker. He spent time with me, step by step. I found in him the father I never had. You can read more here.
It's depressing that anti-choicers see nothing wrong with criminalizing abortion, even with Romania's history. Ceausescu did what every Lifer wanted, and they don't care. In fact, they probably like the fact that women and children suffered. After all, if you're born, you're not important unless your making more unborn people be born. Babies are so awesome.
I've seen justifications of Romanian women's suffering.
Suffering is justifiable and perfectly fine for anti-choicers.
Why won't they learn?
If 7-year-old Ene Cristian Ionut could overcome his rage, he could tell the story about how he too became lost.
Instead, he glares at the watery sun that peeks through dirty windows as he wipes his burning eyes. When he was 2 months old, he emerged from a hospital with AIDS acquired from either a dirty needle or a questionable blood transfusion. He receives no antiviral drugs - a privilege reserved for only a few - and his 29-year-old mother, herself dying of breast cancer, sobs in despair.
Had this been six years ago, the world could point the finger at Nicolae Ceausescu. The infamous dictator was executed in 1989 shortly after a coup toppled the Romanian government as the Iron Curtain crumpled across Eastern Europe.
The misery the children suffered then was the result of Ceausescu's ruinous policies that placed more than 150,000 children in orphanages, desecrated a once-model medical system and raped the national economy.
Many in Romanian orphanages, then and now, have parents, but those parents have surrendered them to state care - some because they are too poor to care for them and others because they just do not want the burden.
Today, more than 100,000 children remain institutionalized. Source and read more.
Further Reading:
Life in Ceausescu's institutions
The Orphanages
Researchers Still Learning from Romania's Orphans
Romania's Orphans Face Widespread Abuse, Group Says