Ceausescus' Family-Planning Edicts Create Overburdened Orphanages
TERRY LEONARD , Associated Press
Jan. 2, 1990 2:02 PM ET
BUCHAREST, ROMANIA BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) _ Wailing infants compete for the attention of a single matron. Toddlers stand in their cribs, rocking from foot to foot, staring soundlessly ahead.
They are some of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu's youngest victims.
The 800 orphaned or abandoned children live in Orphanage No. 1 - Romania's largest - an understaffed complex of seven aging buildings on the capital's north side.
The oldest child is 3, the youngest a matter of days.
The older children eat their lunch off tin plates, drink milk or juice from tin cups, and play in spartan rooms furnished with only a few plastic toys.
None of these children know about Elena Ceausescu, her ideas on family planning or visions of increasing the population for Romania's ''Golden Era.''
The wife of the Communist dictator, who called herself ''the mother of the nation's children'' and who was executed with her husband on Dec. 25, personally supervised enforcement of Romania's family laws.
The laws prohibited birth control, abortions and family planning information for women with fewer than five children.
Mrs. Ceausescu envisioned Romania as a mighty state of 30 million people by the year 2000.
''The unhealthy and abandoned children living in this facility are the direct result of national policy,'' said Dr. Margareta Creteanu, the orphanage's chief medical officer.
''An ill woman could not have an abortion so many genetic illnesses were passed to the children,'' she said.
She said about 40 of the children suffered from Down syndrome, genetic disorders or severe birth defects.
''Some parents don't want the children because they are ill. Some parents cannot take care of them,'' she said. ''Some of the other children were abandoned because their parents already have too many children, or because their mother was unwed and too young to care for her child.''
In 1987, Ceausescu ordered a freeze on adoptions by foreign citizens who had been paying thousands of dollars in fees and more under the table to get a child.
Ms. Creteanu said there were 129 children at her orphanage whose paperwork had been completed, who were waiting only for a lifting of the freeze.
Livia Mann, a Romanian emigre who lives in Portland, Ore., said she and her husband are childless and have been trying to win the freedom of their adopted 3-year-old daughter, Mihalache Georgiana, for 2 1/2 years.
The girl lives with Mrs. Mann's sister in Bucharest. The old government allowed them to take the child out of the orphanage, but not out of the country.
''We paid $1,400 in fees at first. But the government lawyer always told us there were more papers to sign. My husband had to come back to Romania twice every year to sign papers. Every time the lawyer wanted money, a color television or some other 'present,''' she said.
Mrs. Mann said the couple spent between $8,000 and $10,000 in their effort to get Mihalache Georgiana to the United States.
''Now the new government tells us too many things are going on and that this is not exactly an emergency,'' she said. ''I hope it will be very soon. But it will not be today or tommorrow. I hope it will be within four or five months.''
Without foreign adoption, most of the kids at Orphanage No. 1 face a childhood spent in state institutions. There is no shortage of children in the Romania the Ceausescus left behind.
By the time they reach 4, the children at Orphanage No. 1 will have been sent to state residence schools, said Ms. Creteanu.
At the orphanage, 180 people, including doctors, nurses and medical students, work around the clock to care for the children. The staff seems caring and efficient but overwhelmed by the numbers and the emotional needs of such young children.
In the rooms of white cribs, some of the toddlers shout with glee at the sight of visitors. They hold out their arms, pleading to be picked up. Others stare blankly and rock slowly from side to side as they stand in their cribs.
Dr. Horia Talfes, a volunteer at the orphanage in his spare time, laughs and plays briefly with a 3-year-old girl. He said the girl had been born premature and had required extensive medical care.
''What we need,'' he said, ''is specialized medicine for children and modern equipment. Ours is so antiquated. We have plenty of general medicines, but not enough of the kinds made specially for small children.''
Ms. Creteanu clung to the hope that Romania's revolution will make things better for its unwanted children.
''I think things will be better for the children and I think the number of children in the orphanages around the country will decrease,'' she said, noting the new government had already repealed the family laws. ''The new government has already said it will lift the restrictions on foreign adoption.''