The Culture of Life, Ceausescu and the Christian Right / GOP.
Wed Apr 20, 2005 at 12:08:51 PM PDT
Nicolae Ceausescu's demographic policies give us a astonishing blueprint for the current Christian Right's attempt to install a "Culture of Life".
Ceausescu, communist dictator of Romania, sometimes dubbed, "Dracula" or "Caligula" was executed in 1989 - After ruling Romania for 24 years.
"The fetus is the property of the entire society," Ceausescu proclaimed. "Anyone who avoids having children is a deserter who abandons the laws of national continuity."
* Ceausescu outlawed abortion:
The government responded in 1966 with a decree that prohibited abortion on demand and introduced other pronatalist policies to increase birthrates. The decree stipulated that abortion would be allowed only when pregnancy endangered the life of a woman or was the result of rape or incest, or if the child was likely to have a congenital disease or deformity. Also an abortion could be performed if the woman was over forty-five years of age or had given birth to at least four children who remained under her care. Any abortion performed for any other reason became a criminal offense, and the penal code was revised to provide penalties for those who sought or performed illegal abortions.
* Ceausescu outlawed contraception:
Because contraceptives were not manufactured in Romania, and all legal importation of them had stopped, the sudden unavailability of abortion made birth control extremely difficult.
* Ceausescu outlawed sex education:
Ceausescu made mockery of family planning. He forbade sex education. Books on human sexuality and reproduction were classified as "state secrets," to be used only as medical textbooks.
* Ceausescu also made it harder for couples to divorce, in conclusion:
Series of laws passed making abortions illegal, divorce difficult to obtain, contraceptive use prohibited and increased the taxes on childless couples.
* The aftermath:
The birth-rate almost doubles, but is accompanied by a leap in infant mortality and unwanted pregnancies, with the rising numbers of handicapped, orphaned and abandoned children being placed in decrepit institutions under state care.
The infamous dictator was executed in 1989 shortly after a coup toppled the Romanian government as the Iron Curtain crumpled across Eastern Europe. Ceausescu's ruinous policies placed more than 150,000 children in orphanages, desecrated a once-model medical system, and raped the national economy. Many Romanian orphans, then and now, have parents, but their parents surrendered them to state care--some because they were too poor to care for them and others because they just did not want the burden of children they were forced to birth. Today, more than 100,000 children remain institutionalized.
The nation is home to more than one-half of the children with AIDS in Europe. Most acquired the disease from infusions of infected blood or dirty needles reused in hospitals during Ceausescu's quarter-century of rule.
Pretty heavy, now the next time a GOP nutjob praises the culture of life and spits on abortion, divorce, sex education and condoms you might as well point him to that small little nation named Romania and its failed past.
[edit]
Heck, I think you get the picture. Some might call this comparison ludicrous, considering Ceausescu was a dictator and the USA is a democracy. But the overall political trends by De Lay, Frist, etc. are frightening, and the effects such policies have might be well illustrated with this example.
