Reproductive self-determination was quashed, however, with Ceausescu's rise to power in 1965. In order to expand the country's industrial and economic sectors, Ceausescu needed vast new ranks of Romanian citizens. To fill these ranks, Ceausescu issued Decree 770, which outlawed contraception and abortion for women under 40, unless they had already given birth to four or more children.
From 1966 onward, procreation became a civic duty for all fertile Romanian women. As encouragement, Ceausescu bestowed extraordinary titles upon "dutiful," childbearing women — "Heroine Mother" for having 10 or more children, "Maternal Glory" for having seven to nine children, and the "Maternity Medal" for having five or six children. Between 1967 and 1972, more than two million "children of the decree" were born.
Women and Children Last
Weaving clips from popular cinema, propaganda films, and documentary footage with candid first-person interviews with women, doctors, nurses, and abortion providers, Iepan's film investigates what happened to the women and children who bore the brunt of the 23-year history of Decree 770.
The film details the state's vested interest in women's fertility. As the female narrator suggests, men at every level of government became obsessed with the date of a woman's last menstrual period. In factories, women were rounded up for surprise gynecological exams. The government levied a special tax on childless couples and unmarried citizens over age 25. All miscarriages were investigated. Romania was, as one writer later put it, "an anti-abortion police state."
With no access to contraception, many women turned to the only option available to them — illegal abortion. A vast underground network of abortion providers emerged after 1966 — many of the providers untrained and some so unscrupulous and deadly that, as one OB/GYN in the film says, they were no better than serial murderers. Statistics suggest that only one out of every 10 abortion providers during Ceausescu's regime held a medical degree.
Under Ceausescu, maternal morbidity in Romania reached unprecedented numbers, with illegal abortions accounting for more than 80 percent of maternal deaths. Indeed, tens of thousands of Romanian women died from illegal abortion under Decree 770. Countless more were rendered infertile from unsafe procedures. Iepan, who worked on Children of the Decree for more than six years, sees his film as "an homage paid to these women."
For children of this time, the situation was equally bleak. Thousands of children of the decree were abandoned by families who could no longer care for them, as were disabled or mentally ill children. The population of orphanages and state-run institutions swelled after 1966, and as Romania's economy withered in the 1980s, so did these children's living conditions. As the film reveals, images of the truly horrifying conditions in Romania's state-run institutions spread quickly around the world and heralded the end of the Ceausescu regime.
