Romania
World Ranking: #7
Romania suffers the seventh highest abortion rate in the world.
(Among countries with 10 million+ people.)
The Scale of the Crisis
Abortion Average
In Romania,
21.76%
of all known pregnancies ended in abortion.
(Excluding fetal deaths and miscarriage.)
This means that approximately 2 out of every 10 babies conceived are aborted.
Abortion Ratio
For every 1000 babies born in Romania, another
278
were aborted.
This means that for every 10 babies born, approximately 3 more are aborted.
Highest Global Abortion Rates*
The abortion rate is the number of women out of every 1000, age 15-39, that had an abortion in a single year.
Abortion Data Source
 |
Worldwide, official abortion statistics are under-reported and incomplete. In some cases, like Guatemala, no data is available. In India, (by most estimates, second only to China in abortion numbers) official data is too incomplete to use. Our data source is the Abortion Worldwide Report (AWR) [Informe Mundial del Aborto (IMA)] (Jacobson and Johnston, 2018). They provide reported and estimated abortions by year for 110 countries and other areas through 2015. You can find updates to this data here. |
The Work
A prolife movement is slowly building in Romania. They have established a network of pregnancy help centers. PassionLife teams travel to Romania yearly to help fold evangelical churches into the work.
PassionLife’s simplified reproducible resources on biblical bioethics, prolife apologetics and crisis pregnancy intervention are translated and freely available in Romanian.
To date, PassionLife’s work in Romania has been with the Open Brethren network of Churches and the seminary, Timotheus Theological Institute in Bucharest.
The Impact
Introductory presentations of PassionLife’s 4 Questions training on the Gospel of Life has led to planning for a large-scale prolife pastors training.
Under consideration is a “Children’s Day Campaign” among a network of 600 churches with a target goal to train 457,000 people to rescue the innocent by helping mothers in crisis. This rapidly reproducing training model is designed to culminate on Children’s Day, June 1, which is an annual holiday.
The Challenge
Romania has a tragic history that led to an unprecedented abortion rate. After suffering the murderous oppression of the Nazis, Romanians endured the terrors of the secret police, forced labor camps and execution for dissent with the rise of the dictator, Nicholas Ceausescu in 1965.
With demonic genius, Ceausescu’s regime outlawed abortion. We say demonic, because Ceausescu’s motive was not upholding the right to life for all people, born and unborn. Instead, he wanted a larger army and other human assets to serve the State’s purposes. He imposed a monthly fine on single women over 25 and childless married couples. He required gynecological exams for women at work. Miscarriages were “investigated.” Unmarried people were taxed and punished as unfit citizens.
On Christmas Day, 1989, Ceausescu was overthrown and murdered by an outraged populace. They threw off his dictatorship by releasing themselves from all restraints on abortion—in fact, the legalization of abortion was the first new law enacted under the newly-liberated Romanian authority. Within one year (1990), 76% of all pregnancies ended in abortion.
But there are signs of hope. First, the rate of abortion in 1990 was 236.08 (abortions per 1000 women age 19-39) but by 1995, it had declined to 118.88. Currently the rate is down to 19.07.
Pray for that trend to continue as Christian leaders and influencers boldly declare the value of human life (inherent, equal, exceptional and eternal) as the just and true foundation for protecting and nurturing preborn human life.
Where abortion is most concentrated, you are most needed…
Three ways YOU can advance the work:
Connect
Do you have connections in Romania? You can send them Gospel of Life Romanian resources and introduce us to them or encourage them to reach out to Mark Nicholson at mnicholson@passionlife.org.
Who knows? You may open a door for advancing a new work in one of the neediest places on earth!
Give
Your gift to PassionLife will advance the work in Romania, where we continue to partner with local Christians to rescue the innocent by helping mothers in crisis.
Sign Up & Pray
Join the PassionLife newsletter to see the impact your gift is making in Romania and pray for the progress and challenges faced by our Christian brothers and sisters as they proclaim the Gospel of Life in Romania.