Romania and Decree 770: Why Banning Abortion Is a Bad Idea

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With states recently passing restrictive laws regarding abortion and the overturning of Roe Vs. Wade by the US Supreme Court, a dystopian future in America where abortion is fully outlawed is becoming increasingly threatening. Many wonder what this might look like and its repercussions on women and the country at large, but we don’t have to wonder. 

We can simply take a look at Communist Romania after 1967 when Nicolae Ceaușescu’s government fully criminalized abortion, and contraceptives were banned nationwide through Decree 770. The effects of Decree 770 led to horrific consequences for women and the nation as a whole. 

Romania Bans Abortion and Contraception

In 1957, abortion was legalized in Romania. Prior to that, women could face imprisonment for undergoing abortion-related procedures unless the woman’s life was in danger or the child could inherit a severe genetic disorder. Due to a lack of contraception in Romania, 80% of pregnancies were aborted between 1957 and 1966. Eventually, Romania saw a drop in birthrate, and the government decided to do something to ensure constant population growth.

Nicolae Ceaușescu’s government decided to ban abortion in almost all cases in order to cause births to skyrocket. Contraception was soon taken off the shelves of stores and could only be found on the black market. Women working for the state or attending university were forced to undergo gynecology exams, and any sign of pregnancy was reported and followed up on by the government. Any adult without a child had a portion of their wages taken. 

The government began to glorify raising a child and plastered propaganda everywhere about how raising a child is a woman’s ultimate and only duty in life. They also promised assistance for families and children to help these women in their ultimate goal, but like most communist programs, it would fall short, and families would be left on the wayside to suffer. Romanian families living in poverty weren’t ready for the financial burden of the required four children, and the government wasn’t ready to help either.

However, Nicolae Ceaușescu did get what he wanted, as birth rates nearly doubled immediately after Decree 770 came into effect, but at what cost?

Backroom Abortions and Overflowing Orphanages

As we all know, banning abortion doesn’t stop it; it just makes it more dangerous for those that need it. During the time that abortion was banned in Romania, over 9,000 women died from complications resulting from backroom abortions or pregnancy complications. This is an average of more than one woman a day, every day, for twenty-three years, dying from something completely preventable. There are numerous horror stories of women in Romania going to a stranger’s home and having an abortion performed on a kitchen table or the bare floor. 

Besides women, the children that were forced to be born also suffered greatly. Thanks to the lack of promised assistance from the Romanian communist government, women found themselves abandoning their newborn children at hospitals, orphanages, or even in the elements. 

The children that did find themselves in orphanages often suffered from mental or emotional problems. The true damage from Nicolae Ceaușescu’s wish for every Romanian mother to have four children wouldn’t be known until after his execution and the fall of communist Romania. 

The Repeal of Decree 770

Nicolae Ceaușescu would eventually be ousted and executed in December of 1989 after declining living standards throughout the country and an incident where he commanded the military to fire protesters, among other things. With his removal, the new Romanian government reversed Decree 770 quickly in 1990. 

There were almost a million abortions in the year following the repeal, with three abortions for every live birth in the country. As time passed, the number of abortions steadily dropped to just 31,000 in 2020. This is more than likely due to an increase in contraceptive availability and an increase in sexual education. 

With the communist party removed, foreign governments and aid organizations began to get a deeper look into Romania and the state of the people living there. The photos that poured out showing crowded orphanages filled with malnourished and sick children caused an uproar, and there were immediate efforts from Western families to adopt or support these abandoned children.

Aftermath

Even with the world’s help, the damage was already done. These children had been born and neglected, suffering needlessly at the will of a mad dictator. The women forced to carry every pregnancy to term, regardless of the financial or emotional impact, couldn’t be indemnified. The lives lost to infection, complications, or at-home abortions gone wrong could never be brought back. 

Stories began pouring out from women that had received at-home abortions. Women like Daniela Dragchi received a botched abortion from a woman without medical training using medical tools boiled in alcohol on the kitchen stove. When that abortion wouldn’t work, she would seek out another woman days later, who laid her on a kitchen table and performed another one. 

Or stories from abandoned children like Izidor Ruckel’s who spent the first three years of his life drinking gruel from a baby bottle in a hospital before he was transferred to another hospital for children deemed irrecoverable. There, he would watch from barred windows as other children left the hospital across the street with their parents, something he would never know. Instead, he would be confined to a children’s hospital ravaged by HIV from unscreened blood transfusion and needles from sedatives given to “unruly” children.

This hospital was like the other hundreds of orphanages around the country that Nicolae Ceaușescu had built to house the country’s growing population of unwanted children. Ceaușescu even went as far as having signs displayed throughout cities that stated, “The state can take better care of your child than you can.” This horrid lie would lead many mothers to believe that their children were better off in the hands of the government than in poverty-stricken homes. 

Even with that, the damage was already done. These children had been born and neglected, suffering needlessly at the will of a mad dictator. The women forced to carry every pregnancy to term, regardless of the financial or emotional impact, couldn’t be indemnified. The lives lost to infection, complications, or at-home abortions gone wrong could never be brought back. 

Abortion Today

Today in Romania, abortion has remained legal for women under 14 weeks pregnant, with exceptions in the interest of the life of the mother or the fetus. That’s not to say people haven’t tried to repeal abortion in Romania. Keeping abortion legal and readily available to women who need it or want it is an everlasting fight. 

Those that seek to oppose abortion in the United States should first have to read about the horrors of banned abortion and contraception in communist Romania. Those that say it’s just abortion on the line may not know that contraception is also beginning to come under fire across America.