The communist regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu issued Decree 770, aimed at the creation of a new and large Romanian population by restricting abortion and contraception.
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 refocused primarily on the benefits of motherhood, including the ostensible 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.
In the seventies, birth rates declined again. Economic pressure on 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 women could only utilize primitive methods of abortion, which led to infection, sterility or even their own death. The mortality among pregnant women became the highest of Europe during the reign of Ceaușescu. While the childbed mortality rate kept declining over the years in neighboring countries, in Romania it increased to more than ten times that of its neighbors.
Many children born in this period became malnourished, were severely physically handicapped, or ended up in care under grievous conditions, which led to a rise in child mortality.
Since the fall of Decree 770 the number of abortions has risen in Romanian; in 2002, 7.9% of Romanian women had reported undergoing an abortion. Some conclude that the number of abortions is so high because of the lack of knowledge of birth control methods by the Romanian population.
