Decree 770

Decreței (from the Romanian language word decret, meaning "decree"; diminutive decrețel) are Romanians born in the late 1960s and 1970s, shortly after the communist regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu issued Decree 770, aimed at the creation of a new and large Romanian population by restricting abortion and contraception.

Before 1967, the Romanian abortion policy was one of the most liberal in Europe. Because the availability of contraceptive methods was poor, abortion was the most common means of family planning.

Through a combination of modernization of the Romanian community, the high participation of women in the labor market and a low standard of living, the number of births significantly decreased since the 1950s, reaching its lowest value in 1966. However, the leaders saw the decreasing number of births mainly as a result of the decree issued in 1957 that legalized abortion.

To counter this sharp decline of the population, the Communist Party decided that the Romanian population should be increased from 23 to 30 million inhabitants. In October 1966, decree 770 was authorized by Ceaușescu. Abortion and contraception were declared illegal, except for:

To enforce the decree, society was strictly controlled. Contraceptives disappeared from the shelves and all women were forced to be monitored monthly by a gynecologist. Any detected pregnancies were followed until birth. Secret police kept their eye on operations in hospitals closely.

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 increased by almost 100%, and the number of children per woman increased from 1.9 to 3.7. The generation born in 1967 and 1968 was the largest in Romanian history. Hastily, thousands of nursery schools were built.

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