Romania’s sad abortion story

Romanian decree 770. You know, when then-Romanian President Nick Ceausescu decided that there weren’t enough Romanians. He pumped up the birth rate by outlawing abortion. “The fetus is the property of the entire society,” Ceausescu proclaimed. “Anyone who avoids having children is a deserter.”

Kind of what the forced-birther lobby in the United States is saying right now: “Listen up, gals! Your bodies aren’t yours anymore. They’re ours.”

Predictably, decree 770 had unintended consequences. At first, Romania’s birthrate nearly doubled. But poor nutrition and inadequate prenatal care endangered many pregnant women. The country’s infant-mortality rate soared to 83 deaths in every 1,000 births (against a Western European average of less than 10 per thousand). About one in 10 babies was born underweight; newborns weighing under 3.4 pounds were classified as miscarriages and denied treatment. Unwanted children ended up in orphanages and in the streets, often addicted to sniffing paint.

“The law only forbade abortion,” said a Romanian doctor. “It did nothing to promote life.”

Some anti-choicers will say America is different from Romania. Really? Your relentless focus on the fetus at the expense of everything else could take us to the very same place and, arguably, already has.

Nancy Runyan

Spokane Valley