Bill Clinton: “I have listened to women throughout the world who have struggled against government regimes that forced them to bear…”

“I have listened to women throughout the world who have struggled against government regimes that forced them to bear children or to abort them. The decision was taken totally out of their hands. It was left to chambers such as this to make those most personal and intimate of decisions. I will give you a few quick examples. In pre-democratic Romania, they had a leader named Ceausescu, a Soviet style Communist dictator, who decided it was the duty of every Romanian woman to bear five children so they could build the Romanian State. So they eliminated birth control, they eliminated sex education, and they outlawed abortions. Here is what happened to you if you were a woman in Romania during the Ceausescu regime: Once a month you would be rounded up at your workplace. You would be taken to a government-controlled health clinic. You would be told to disrobe while you were standing in line. You would get up on the table. You would be examined by a government doctor with a government secret police officer watching. And if you were pregnant, you would be monitored to make sure you didn't do anything to that pregnancy. When I first heard this, I was dumbfounded. I said: ``Please, that cannot be true.'' That is what happened. If a woman failed to conceive, her family was fined a celibacy tax of up to 10 percent of their monthly salary. The terrible result was many children were born who were abandoned, who were left to be raised in government-run orphanages.”