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Policy resistance as a reaction
At times, policy resistance can result in unimaginable tragedy. In 1967, a
Communist dictator by the name of Nicolae Ceausescu led the Romanian
government as they decided that Romania needed to increase its population.
While that conclusion does not seem to be concerning on its own, the approach
they took to help them achieve their goal of growing their country’s population
is both terrifying and heartbreaking.
The Romanian government made it illegal for women under the age of forty-five
to have an abortion. The birth rate tripled, but the people of Romania enacted
their own form of policy resistance. Even though the government maintained
their policy of making contraceptives and abortions illegal, the people of
Romania began lowering the birth rate back to its former level. Women, in
trying to regain control of their own lives, resorted to getting dangerous, illegal
abortions, which resulted in tripling the maternal mortality rate. If women did
give birth to children they did not plan to have, or could not financially provide
for, they often abandoned those children to orphanages. Romanian families knew
they could not adequately take care of the children their government expected
them to raise, so they decided to resist the policy at great detriment to

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themselves and the generation of children who spent their youth in orphanages.
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The policy enforced by the Romanian government and subsequent resistance
enacted by its people resulted in heartbreaking, unimaginable tragedy.
Thankfully, once this government was removed from power, (quite violently) the
first law passed by the new government repealed the ban on abortions and
contraceptives, which had proven to be so harmful for Romania. The new law
holds true to this day, as it is possible to purchase contraceptives in Romania
without a prescription.