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Hekate

(94,623 posts)
Fri May 10, 2024, 08:14 PM May 2024

🔥As Senator Katie Britt proposes a national data base of pregnant women, a historical reminder of Romania

Last edited Fri May 10, 2024, 11:44 PM - Edit history (1)

… and the loathsome Nicolae Ceausescu.:

Sen. Katie Britt Introduces Bill to Create Federal Database of Pregnant People
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218938770

Historical reminder: Romanian Decree 770, signed into law in 1967 by Nicolae Ceausescu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_770

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niyad

(119,885 posts)
1. This has rapidly moved beyond frightening to absolute insanity.
Fri May 10, 2024, 10:25 PM
May 2024

Thank you for this horrifying reminder.

Hekate

(94,623 posts)
5. It's amazing how much I remembered & yet how much digging I had to do to get this much to cite
Fri May 10, 2024, 11:02 PM
May 2024

Crashed for a 3 hour nap and upon awakening told hubby I was pleased to be able to make the post at all, but irritated at the roadblocks. He hauled me off to his computer and showed me a modern wonder: a chatbot search program that pulled everything up in a flash — all the newspaper articles about the revolution, more articles about the scandal of the damaged kids in the “orphanages,” absolutely everything I remembered, and all with live links. I still have not gone searching through the emails he sent me before I left to make dinner.

Wow. I was floored.

As a former teacher, he said oh yes this is a nightmare for teachers trying to get students to learn to write papers — but for people like you it’s great.

I asked if I could use this on my own, and it turns out I will have to ask him to get me in each time, as the company he works for has a special license (with Microsoft I think) to protect all of his company’s info as his IT unit uses this tool. In other words, going into the woods by myself may result in too much personal info being scooped up from my iPad.

Sorry I’m too excited, but over the past 22 years I’ve counted on being able to do quick searches to confirm and cite what I already have a grounding in — and for whatever reasons the changes in technology have made it harder and slower for me over the past couple of years. This could be very cool.

PoindexterOglethorpe

(26,727 posts)
2. Let's try to think about this.
Fri May 10, 2024, 10:30 PM
May 2024

100% of ALL pregnancies are caused by men. I know, you'd think the anti-choice people are convinced that women magically get pregnant on their own, without any kind of help at all, but so sorry to tell you this, they don't. A man is always, every single time, involved.

So let's start holding men responsible. I have a couple of possibilities. One is that we sterilize all males at puberty. They can have all the sex they want, but can't cause a pregnancy. That's a possibility.

Another is that we do DNA testing of every single male in the country, and when a woman gets pregnant, and is denied an abortion, this DNA testing can show who the father is. And require mandatory child support. No, you do not get to have time in that child's life if you didn't support the mother at the very beginning.

Warpy

(113,130 posts)
4. I remember the horror stories of their orphanages
Fri May 10, 2024, 10:44 PM
May 2024

That's one of the things that happens when these religious patriarchs get their way.

Hekate

(94,623 posts)
8. It wasn't about religion-- he was big into having churches destroyed. As a Communist country ...
Fri May 10, 2024, 11:38 PM
May 2024

Last edited Sat May 11, 2024, 12:11 AM - Edit history (1)

As a Communist country, it was straight-up about power — altho the longer he held total power, the more “kinglike” he became, using a custom made scepter, changing the names of buildings that had been called The People’s This and the People’s That. The forced-birth (or “natalist” ) policies were because he believed a much bigger population would make the country more powerful. Instead it made the population utterly miserable, poor, and unstable.

Warpy

(113,130 posts)
10. I never said Ceausescu was.
Sat May 11, 2024, 12:22 AM
May 2024

Those are the men setting up the same conditions here, their religious hangup having exactly the same effect whatever that big bug up Ceausescu's bum was.

When politicians think they have any sort of a right to meddle i9nside the bodies of women and determine what goes on there, especially inside women they will never know anything about, bad things will happen. The orphanages were one such thing, we had those heare in the US when I was growing up and abortion was illegal.

sheshe2

(87,464 posts)
7. From your link:
Fri May 10, 2024, 11:13 PM
May 2024
To enforce the decree, society was strictly controlled. Contraceptives were removed from sale and all women were required to be monitored monthly by a gynecologist.[3]: 6  Any detected pregnancies were followed until birth. The secret police kept a close eye on hospital procedures.

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 almost doubled, and the estimated total fertility rate (TFR) increased from 1.9 to 3.7. The generation born in 1967 and 1968 was the largest in Romanian history. Thousands of nursery schools were built. As the children got older, their needs were not properly met. There were cases where lectures were shortened to enable three school shifts. In schools, a student–teacher ratio of over 40 children per class became frequent.[3]: 9  When, after the revolution, lots of business closed or shrank their workforce, the latest hires were fired preferentially.[3]: 10 

The decree was abolished on 26 December 1989,[4] days after the Romanian Revolution.


Thanks for this Hekate, it is important to acknowledge the facts of the past mistakes. Forced birth, lies and then cut off aid to children.

Hekate

(94,623 posts)
9. It's good to remember that other countries have trod this path before, & how it worked out for them
Fri May 10, 2024, 11:43 PM
May 2024
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