Global 20th-Century Atrocities Highlight the Dangers of a Post-Roe America

Global 20th-Century Atrocities Highlight the Dangers of a Post-Roe America
6/20/2022 by S. Elizabeth Sigler
From Romania to Ireland to the U.S., abortion bans have a bloody history.


Decades after the death of former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, Romania’s orphanages are still full of children and adults—and the regime’s policy, which previously rendered abortion and contraception illegal, is still very strong in the minds of the population. (Thomas Coex / AFP via Getty Images)

Since the Supreme Court voted in support of Texas’s infamous Senate Bill 8, 31 more states have introduced anti-abortion legislation—and two of those 31 bans are currently in effect. Three more have been signed into law but have yet to take effect.
After the Senate voted no on the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), I decided to conduct in-depth research on two separate but similar moments in recent global history. In October 1966, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu outlawed abortion and all forms of birth control. He was deeply concerned with Romania’s declining birth rate. I think of Ceaușescu’s reasoning whenever I see a sudden slew of news articles about our steadily declining birth rates here in the United States. Without Apology by Jenny Brown contains a chapter highlighting her illuminating research on the correlation between declining birthrates and proposed abortion bans:
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Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries

In 1983 Ireland, 67 percent of the population voted to pass the Eighth Amendment, which strictly outlawed all abortion, even though elective abortions had been banned since 1861. Under the repressive culture supported by these laws, young unmarried women were liable to be sent to a Magdalene Laundry. Many survivors attest that their living conditions were that of a prison. Although the churches and the courts were known for forcing young women into the laundries, parents could decide to hand their daughters to a laundry for a range of offenses from “being so bold” to having a child out of wedlock.


Protestoes outside Leinster House, Dublin, in memory of Savita Halappanavar, who died from sepsis at the age of 31 in 2012 after Irish doctors denied her an abortion, even as she miscarried. Her death sparked outrage across Ireland. Six years after her death, voters agreed to remove the Republic of Ireland’s constitutional ban on abortion. (Julien Behal / PA Images via Getty Images)

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The U.S.’s Own Dark History

The horrific human rights violations exhibited inside the Romanian orphanages and the Magdalene laundries resulted from policies designed to control people of reproductive age by limiting their bodily autonomy. Both Romania and Ireland have since legalized abortion, as conservative lawmakers and justices here in the United States continue to chip away at rights established by Roe v. Wade in 1973. Some Americans will be quick to say that facilities like the Romanian orphanages and the Magdalene Laundries couldn’t possibly take root here in the United States. I would counter that recent events show we are, in fact, capable of comparable atrocities.

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If this is how we’ve treated fellow human beings in recent years, how bad will things be for people of childbearing age once the Supreme Court of today decides that we no longer have full rights to our own bodies?

https://msmagazine.com/2022/06/20/romania-ireland-abortion-bans-roe-v-wade/