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This is a direct result of Ceaușescu banning abortions in comunist România in his infamous decree 770 from 1966, in an effort to grow the population. This was

This is a direct result of Ceaușescu banning abortions in comunist România in his infamous decree 770 from 1966, in an effort to grow the population. This was a huge social experiment the pro-life vs pro-choice debaters can learn from. If you want to see a documentary on the subject this is a good one: https://youtu.be/ZgZJ-IV8Et0 https://youtu.be/ZgZJ-IV8Et0

drno123 6y ago
In the article it states that Izidor was not an unwanted child, but got ill when very young, got hospitalised and the family just left him in the hospital and stopped visiting.
- bad_user 6y ago
  > it states that Izidor was not an unwanted child Where does it say that? I might have missed it. Abandoning a child for having a leg deformity doesn't strike me as if he was wanted much. Anyway, the poor conditions in the orphanages and children hospitals were a result of overcrowding and this happened due to Ceaușescu's policies that turned Romania into a baby factory. And there was also the issue that children with disabilities were incompatible with communism's "new man" ideal, so the orphanages for children with disabilities were genuine horrors.
  - teruakohatu 6y ago
    That is what the birth parents told him, it's near the end of the article. Hard to know if they were telling the truth, but he was not abandoned at birth.
  - magicalhippo 6y ago
    Maybe not the case here, but I heard of a similar story from another country. As a baby he got his arm badly burned and the parents left him at the hospital because they couldn't pay for treatment. The accident cost him his hand _and_ his parents.
dmos62 6y ago
Did anyone notice how pro-life and pro-choice are arbitrary terms? E.g. I'm in favor of free abortions, because I value life and unplanned children willl have a negative effect on it, so I'm pro-life; or, I'm in favor of outlawing abortions, because I think that we should concentrate on making the right choices in situations that lead up to pregnancy, so I'm pro-choice. I guess "life" and "choice" are just references to things that the respective partisans bring up when arguing. Which would imply that my argument above is wrong: it's not about accurately describing a social situation, but about giving an argument a short name. Which has a problem of its own. It's limiting. It implies that if you're against abortions, then that's because of the validity of some "life" argument, or the invalidity of some "choice" argument. Over time, it probably makes the debates stupider. Why give names to arguments (pro-choice, pro-life)? Why not just say pro-abortion, anti-abortion? Because you want to appeal to peoples' preexisting biases? If that's the case, it's a bad attitude towards debate.
- s1t5 6y ago
  The terms aren't arbitrary, they're used and propagated deliberately to turn as social issue into a political one. Using a term like "pro-life" creates a false dichotomy which leads to the false and simplistic conclusion that if you oppose pro-life then you must be anti-life. > Why not just say pro-abortion, anti-abortion? Because almost no one is "pro-abortion". It's a horrible and traumatic experience to go through and no one is happy to have one. That doesn't mean that women shouldn't have the option to do it. That's why pro-choice works better - it's just more descriptive of the actual issue.
  - tarsinge 6y ago
    The term "pro-life" may creates a false dichotomy when put in that way, but if you think at it as the crux of the argument not so much. Case in point you kind of miss it in your last sentence and have it in the opposite: if a foetus is a life (i.e. a person) from day one, then it follows women shouldn't have a choice (because it's not their body anymore, in that context, like a weirdness of nature that a different person with normal rights inhabits a mother's body). They are not saying it will lead to a happy experience either to raise that child, but that's an unfortunate consequence of the "life" argument, hence "life vs choice". Edit: But I agree it's not a good way to frame the debate, "Person at conception vs Person at X weeks/months" would be more relevant to each side position IMO.
zuppy 6y ago
there’s also a whole generation of unwanted babies (me included) that have been kept by the families. that does not mean that all of them had a bad life, but there was a huge impact over the (young) parents life. i still support abortion, though. the women should have total control over their own bodies and should have the right to decide when and if they can handle this.
082349872349872 6y ago
I have often wondered why the 1989 revolution was so violent in comparison with the rest of the warsaw pact, but learning about experiments like that help provide background. (anyone know how much lead there was in romanian petrol circa 1969?)
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  I wouldn't take the outright killings of the Ceausescus as a sign of the Romanian people being so unusually more violent than elsewhere in Eastern Europe. The decision to kill Ceausescu and his wife was taken by a strata of government officials under him, because they wanted to seize power for themselves. In this sense, the Romanian revolution of 1989 was a coup d'etat and we are just lucky that the outcome was eventually a representative democracy and not another dictatorship. While the Ceausescus were hated, it is definitely not a given that popular discontent would have led to their deaths had it not been for that cabal that hastily arranged the trial and executions.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    Interesting, but I wasn't even thinking of the Ceausescus in particular. In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989#Romania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989#Romania it says "over 1,000 people died" (one link away says "Death(s) 689–1,290") which seems very high compared with neighbouring Bulgaria and Hungary.
    - bad_user 6y ago
      That's because the military and the secret police opened fire on the population, the parent is talking nonsense.
  - bad_user 6y ago
    The line about the coup d'etat is bullshit, stop spreading nonsense. Ceaușescu was killed because the terrorists wouldn't give up otherwise, the terrorists being suspected to be the old secret police, which also wreaked havoc in Timișoara.
pavlov 6y ago
Also recommended: “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days“, a 2007 fiction film about a college student in 1980s Romania seeking an illegal abortion. The film won multiple prizes including Cannes Palme d’Or. “Pro-life” Americans would be well advised to see the movie, as a reminder of what would quickly be happening in their own country if a complete ban on abortions were to happen.
- claudiawerner 6y ago
  And by the same director, an excellent film on Romanian social life, Graduation, which is definitely a more modern film about a girl's parents trying to find her a better future outside of Romania. I think I enjoyed it more than 4 Months.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hkai 6y ago
Not only that, but it's a general lesson in what scale of human suffering can happen due to government overreach and attempting to effect social change from the top.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  It's also an indictment of behaviorism. And the scourge behaviorism inflicted on societies during the 20th century.

drno123 6y ago

In the article it states that Izidor was not an unwanted child, but got ill when very young, got hospitalised and the family just left him in the hospital and stopped visiting.

bad_user 6y ago
> it states that Izidor was not an unwanted child Where does it say that? I might have missed it. Abandoning a child for having a leg deformity doesn't strike me as if he was wanted much. Anyway, the poor conditions in the orphanages and children hospitals were a result of overcrowding and this happened due to Ceaușescu's policies that turned Romania into a baby factory. And there was also the issue that children with disabilities were incompatible with communism's "new man" ideal, so the orphanages for children with disabilities were genuine horrors.
- teruakohatu 6y ago
  That is what the birth parents told him, it's near the end of the article. Hard to know if they were telling the truth, but he was not abandoned at birth.
- magicalhippo 6y ago
  Maybe not the case here, but I heard of a similar story from another country. As a baby he got his arm badly burned and the parents left him at the hospital because they couldn't pay for treatment. The accident cost him his hand _and_ his parents.

dmos62 6y ago

Did anyone notice how pro-life and pro-choice are arbitrary terms? E.g. I'm in favor of free abortions, because I value life and unplanned children willl have a negative effect on it, so I'm pro-life; or, I'm in favor of outlawing abortions, because I think that we should concentrate on making the right choices in situations that lead up to pregnancy, so I'm pro-choice. I guess "life" and "choice" are just references to things that the respective partisans bring up when arguing. Which would imply that my argument above is wrong: it's not about accurately describing a social situation, but about giving an argument a short name. Which has a problem of its own. It's limiting. It implies that if you're against abortions, then that's because of the validity of some "life" argument, or the invalidity of some "choice" argument. Over time, it probably makes the debates stupider. Why give names to arguments (pro-choice, pro-life)? Why not just say pro-abortion, anti-abortion? Because you want to appeal to peoples' preexisting biases? If that's the case, it's a bad attitude towards debate.

s1t5 6y ago
The terms aren't arbitrary, they're used and propagated deliberately to turn as social issue into a political one. Using a term like "pro-life" creates a false dichotomy which leads to the false and simplistic conclusion that if you oppose pro-life then you must be anti-life. > Why not just say pro-abortion, anti-abortion? Because almost no one is "pro-abortion". It's a horrible and traumatic experience to go through and no one is happy to have one. That doesn't mean that women shouldn't have the option to do it. That's why pro-choice works better - it's just more descriptive of the actual issue.
- tarsinge 6y ago
  The term "pro-life" may creates a false dichotomy when put in that way, but if you think at it as the crux of the argument not so much. Case in point you kind of miss it in your last sentence and have it in the opposite: if a foetus is a life (i.e. a person) from day one, then it follows women shouldn't have a choice (because it's not their body anymore, in that context, like a weirdness of nature that a different person with normal rights inhabits a mother's body). They are not saying it will lead to a happy experience either to raise that child, but that's an unfortunate consequence of the "life" argument, hence "life vs choice". Edit: But I agree it's not a good way to frame the debate, "Person at conception vs Person at X weeks/months" would be more relevant to each side position IMO.

zuppy 6y ago

there’s also a whole generation of unwanted babies (me included) that have been kept by the families. that does not mean that all of them had a bad life, but there was a huge impact over the (young) parents life. i still support abortion, though. the women should have total control over their own bodies and should have the right to decide when and if they can handle this.

082349872349872 6y ago

I have often wondered why the 1989 revolution was so violent in comparison with the rest of the warsaw pact, but learning about experiments like that help provide background. (anyone know how much lead there was in romanian petrol circa 1969?)

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
I wouldn't take the outright killings of the Ceausescus as a sign of the Romanian people being so unusually more violent than elsewhere in Eastern Europe. The decision to kill Ceausescu and his wife was taken by a strata of government officials under him, because they wanted to seize power for themselves. In this sense, the Romanian revolution of 1989 was a coup d'etat and we are just lucky that the outcome was eventually a representative democracy and not another dictatorship. While the Ceausescus were hated, it is definitely not a given that popular discontent would have led to their deaths had it not been for that cabal that hastily arranged the trial and executions.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  Interesting, but I wasn't even thinking of the Ceausescus in particular. In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989#Romania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989#Romania it says "over 1,000 people died" (one link away says "Death(s) 689–1,290") which seems very high compared with neighbouring Bulgaria and Hungary.
  - bad_user 6y ago
    That's because the military and the secret police opened fire on the population, the parent is talking nonsense.
- bad_user 6y ago
  The line about the coup d'etat is bullshit, stop spreading nonsense. Ceaușescu was killed because the terrorists wouldn't give up otherwise, the terrorists being suspected to be the old secret police, which also wreaked havoc in Timișoara.

pavlov 6y ago

Also recommended: “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days“, a 2007 fiction film about a college student in 1980s Romania seeking an illegal abortion. The film won multiple prizes including Cannes Palme d’Or. “Pro-life” Americans would be well advised to see the movie, as a reminder of what would quickly be happening in their own country if a complete ban on abortions were to happen.

claudiawerner 6y ago
And by the same director, an excellent film on Romanian social life, Graduation, which is definitely a more modern film about a girl's parents trying to find her a better future outside of Romania. I think I enjoyed it more than 4 Months.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

hkai 6y ago

Not only that, but it's a general lesson in what scale of human suffering can happen due to government overreach and attempting to effect social change from the top.

Gibbon1 6y ago
It's also an indictment of behaviorism. And the scourge behaviorism inflicted on societies during the 20th century.