Decreţei

Decreţei (from the Romanian-language word decret, meaning "decree"; singular decreţel) are Romanian children born in the 1960s and 70s, shortly after the communist regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu issued Decree 770. This decree was restricting abortion and contraception, aiming at the creation of a new and large Romanian population.

Origin of the decree

Before 1967, the Romanian abortion policy was one of the most liberal in Europe. Because the availability of less drastic contraceptive methods was poor, abortion was the most common means of contraception.

Through a combination of modernization of the Romanian community, the high participation of women in the labor market and a low standard of living, the number of births significantly decreased since the 1950s, reaching its lowest value in 1966. However, the leaders saw the decreasing number of births mainly as a result of the decree issued in 1957 that legalized abortion.

To counter this sharp decline of the population, the Communist Party decided that the Romanian population should be increased from 23 to 30 million inhabitants. In 1967 (1966 according to some sources), decree 770 was authorized by Ceauşescu. This decree included roughly the following: abortion and family planning was virtually declared illegal, and really only allowed for

• women over 40 (later raised to 45)
• women who had already born four children (later raised to five)
• women whose life would be threatened by carrying to term, due to medical complications
• women who were pregnant through rape or incest

Enforcement

To enforce the decree, society was strictly controlled. Contraceptives disappeared from the shelves and all women were forced to be monitored monthly by a gynecologist. Any detected pregnancies were followed until birth. Secret police kept their eye on operations in hospitals closely.

Sex education was virtually non-existent during this time. It focused primarily on the benefits of motherhood, and on the satisfaction of being a heroic mother who gives her homeland many children.

The direct consequence of the decree was a huge baby boom. Between 1966 and 1967 the number of births increased by almost 100%, and the number of children per woman increased from 1.9 to 3.7. Hastily, thousands of nursery schools were built, and the new generation was forced to participate in sports and cultural activities. The generation born in 1967 and 1968 was the largest in Romanian history.

Illegal abortions and mortality

In the seventies, birth rates declined again. The economic need for small families remained, and people began to seek ways to circumvent the decree. Wealthier women were able to obtain contraceptives illegally, or bribed doctors to give diagnoses which made abortion possible. Especially among the less educated and poorer women there were many unwanted pregnancies. These poorer women had to look for primitive methods of abortion, which lead to infection, sterility or even their own death. The mortality among pregnant women became the highest of Europe during the reign of Ceauşescu. While the childbed mortality rate kept declining over the years in neighboring countries, in Romania it increased to more than ten times of that of its neighbors.

Child mortality rose as well. Relatively many children who were born in this period became malnourished or were severely physically handicapped. Many of these children ended up in care under miserable conditions.

The end of decree 770

In the end, it was precisely the new generation created by Ceauşescu that brought about the fall of its own creator. Immediately after the fall of communism in December 1989 the decree was lifted. The number of births was instantly lowered, and a sharp increase in the number of legal abortions was the result.

Sources

This article, or a previous version, was translated from the article "Decreet 770" on the Dutch wikipedia. This Dutch article used the following sources:

• Children of the decree (Das Experiment 770: Gebären auf Befehl), German movie from 2004 by Florin Iepan
• "The 1966 law concerning prohibition of abortion in Romania and its consequences - the fate of one generation", Manuela Lataianu, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warschau

See also

• Natalism
• Abortion in Romania
• Tales from the Golden Age

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