Once upon a time, not that long ago, in a land far, far away, birth control and abortion were made illegal. Bearing children was the name of the game, so childless women paid penalty fines while those with many children enjoyed lavish perks. The secret police were empowered to patrol hospital exam rooms looking for any sign of the newly decreed illegal activity. The age to marry was lowered to 15, and divorce became virtually impossible. But it didn’t stop there. Over the years it got worse, much worse.
Squads of doctors and nurses run by the secret police were formed to administer monthly vaginal exams and pregnancy tests to all female residents, from prepubescent girl to post menopausal women, looking for any sign of “tampering”. Gynecological command units were set up by the police inside private and public workplaces to catch any women who might otherwise evade the exams. A mass propaganda campaign telling women it was their patriotic, religious, and moral obligation to have babies was launched.
At the height of the insanity every pregnancy was recorded and monitored through term by assigned government case managers. Even in the rare instance when a wealthy or influential woman was considered for a special pardon, or in the event of rape or to save the mother’s life from a terminal pregnancy, a senior party representative with the power to veto or arrest had to be present to authorize each and every step of diagnosis and treatment.
Every miscarriage was investigated, doctors and patients alike were interrogated. Trials, such as they were, were secret, the evidence gathered was secret, the names of the accusers were secret, the reason everything had to be secret was secret; the penalties for first time offenders be they doctors, nurses, or patients were brutal: one to five years in prison work camps with no parole and no appeal.
This isn’t a fairy tale gone bad. It really happened.
The Orwellian nightmare finally ended in 1989, when the architects of this madness, Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu, were deposed and summarily executed. But the legacy remains to this day in what was once called (The People’s Republic of) Romania.
It’s hard to believe, but when it comes to women’s health and constitutional rights today, the Republican Party, led by self-proclaimed small government conservatives alarmed over any purported sign of socialism, are eagerly following in the footsteps of an old school Stalinist dictator in creating the most intrusive Big Government apparatus imaginable.
We’ve been warned about this for years, now it’s right outside the door. And lo and behold, it’s even wrapped in a flag and waving a cross just as predicted.
…in what was once called Romania.” Hungh !?*
It’s still called Romania, that place bordered by Hungary, Serbia, Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria and the Black Sea.
Thanks Robin, corrected!
Never again will I remain silent when one of my friends says “It doesn’t really matter who I vote for, both parties are the same.”
But that doesn’t count. Stuff like that is only bad if it’s not being done by Jesus people. If he’d been a good Christian it would have been perfectly all right for Romanian women to be treated like brood mares.
It’s kind of ironic. The Antichrist in the Left Behind books is a Romanian whose first name is Nicolae. The intent was probably to make smarter readers think of Ceausescu, who was amongst the most well known and nastiest of the late Cold War Communist leaders. Yet we see a bunch of the policies currently being promoted by that crowd being very much like that of their supposed ideological enemy.
And Ceauşescu’s policies led to horrendous conditions in orphanages, then to an explosion in the population of street children.
Wow. I didn’t know Ceauşescu was quite that bad. Monthly exams for everyone female? That’s beyond parody – and beyond the Nazis, who were otherwise very similar on these issues!
Typical of totalitarianism.