Translation

NPC: [00:00:00] [intro collage: Sunday Blue, by Sofia Zadar]

robi: [00:00:23] Welcome to a new episode of leneșx radio. In today’s episode, our guests are Corina and Dominik from Asociația Avort Accesibil [r.n.: Accessible Abortion Association], who will tell us about the legal and practical conditions under which an abortion can be performed in Romania. Additionally, we will discuss the services and facilities that can be offered by their organization, Avort Accesibil, and by an entire european network of similar associations. Last but not least, we talk about the political situation in Romania, where the slide towards the right, the far right, will most likely turn abortion rights into a battlefield in the coming years. And that is why it is important that we are informed, and that we have these self-defense tools, so to say. I hope you find this episode educational an interesting. Pleasant audition!

NPC: [00:01:28] [intro collage: Sunday Blue, by Sofia Zadar]

robi: [00:01:52] Thank you for accepting our invitation. To start, would you like to tell us a few things about yourselves and about the Avort Accesibil Collective?

dominik: [00:02:01] Hello, I am Dominik, I am part of the Avort Accesibil Collective. Just a little bit about me. I started this part of reproductive justice and reproductive rights around highschool, because I noticed an acute need for peer-to-peer sexual education. And then this went further during the pandemic, when, unfortunately, abortion became highly restricted because hospitals weren’t putting abortion on the list of high priority medical procedures. And this is the source of this fight for accessible abortion and all the research we will talk about, about how abortion is seen in Romanian society and how hard it is in fact to receive and abortion, despite its legality. I have been doing this for over 6 years, almost 6 years. Oh my god, time flies. But I work on this issue of abortion in Romania, as well as at a global level, in different countries where abortion is more or less restricted. Word to you, Corina.

corina: [00:03:08] I am Corina. I am from the Avort Accesibil Collective. It is an initiative group that we formed last year, because we saw how abortion had become more and more inaccessible in Romania, especially during the last few years, after the pandemic, and we wanted to do something about this. What motivated me is the feeling of the injustice that is occurring, as well as personal experiences and those of my loved ones. We wanted to talk openly, freely about abortion and accountably, not hidden behind metaphors, which is where our name comes from. We want to call reality by its name, that abortion is common, even if it can seem otherwise. That it is a common and safe medical procedure, that it is an essential part of reproductive health, and that possibility to decide when and if one continues a pregnancy pertains to the autonomy of each over one’s own body. We want to popularise actual scientific information about abortion, especially in the context that the public space is dominated by conservative or anti-abortion discourse, spreading false information to scare people, to stigmatise. And this is what we do.

corina: [00:04:32] We offer information about the available options for abortion, we help people findind a clinic close to them and accessing abortion pills. There is an increasingly acute lack of access to medical services, such that last year we started a collaboration with Women Help Women, an international feminist organisation, to make their abortion pills service available in Romania as well. It is an online service, available anywhere in the country, such that people living in rural areas or areas without medical services can have access to abortion pills. This collaboration also came out of the fact that we wish there to be as many alternatives as possible in Romania when it comes to access to abortion. At the same time, we also offer emotional support, because it is very stigmatised. Many people don’t talk to anybody about this and we are there for anyone who considers, is going through, or has been through an abortion, regardless of the reason they care doing it, without judging the person.

robi: [00:05:43] Would you like us to go into a bit of detail regarding the current situation in Romania? To what extent is abortion legal in Romania? Up to how many weeks and under what conditions? So legal in the law is one things, and the practice in different places around the country is another. In practice, to what extent do people who want an elective abortion have access to it? To see what the need or the problem is that you are answering with the collective.

dominik: [00:06:10] Legally, we have an otherwise very random limit. It is at 14 weeks, nothing is happening at 14 weeks that isn’t also happening at 12 or at 18 weeks. It is completely random. It is not based on science that we have a 14-week limit. This [limit] is in the Criminal Law. And it is important that we say it is in the Crimial Law, because, from the beginning, it tells you about abortion that it can be treated like criminal activity, which is extremely stigmatizing for everything involved in this medical procedure. I don’t think there is another medical procedure that is mentioned in Criminal Law. But abortion is. You can get an abortion up to 14 weeks and, if you have certain medical therapeutic reasons, if the pregnancy came from rape, if there are medical recommendations, fetal malformations or the life of the pregnant person is in danger, then teh abortion ca be performed even up to 24 weeks.

dominik: [00:07:14] The major problem when it comes to abortion is, of course, accessibility. Because, even though we haave a 14-week limit, in practice, it is very hard to find a hospital, a doctor to perform the abortion. In the study we published in 2024, we show that over 80% of the public hospitals refuse to perform abortions, which, of course, again, questions the idea of access. We see it mentioned a lot in the press that yes, abortion is legal in Romania and this means that, we’re done, absolutely all problems are solved. But the entire procedure of getting to have an abortion in a Romanian hospital is an extremely difficult one, even for us, who are familiar with the landscape of abortion.

dominik: [00:08:07] We talk about barriers from a medical standpoint, doctors that refuse, be it for religious reasons, be it that the department head doesn’t want to do it and then we ban it in the entire hospital, be it because of this extraordinary pressure from teh anti-abortion groups, which literally go into hospitals and harass the doctors they know to perform abortions. And then doctors refuse these procedures, it is much easier for them to say no, we don’t do this. We also have another problem. There are doctors who do it, but in private clinics, where they ask for five times the cost in a public hospital. So we also have the issue of money, because elective abortion isn’t covered by insurance. If you want to have an abortion, you have to pay. The age of the pregnancy doesn’t matter, you have to pay. Doctors and hospitals set their own prices. So there aren’t regulations for this part. And for pregnancies older than 14 weeks, there are no options in Romania, as it is, of course, illegal. You have to travel outside the country, to countries like… it used to be easier to get to the UK; now, after Brexit, it isn’t. But there are still places int Europe. The Netherlands is one of the countries in which we send people to have an abortion if it is over 14 weeks. But the biggest problem is this, is the limited decided on by each hospital, because some limits are absurd. Five weeks - at five weeks you barely know you’re pregnant. And there is also a limit related to ultrasounds. Not all ultrasounds are covered by the Casa de Asigurări de Sănătate [r.n.: the National Health Agency, CAS for short].

robi: [00:09:51] That is, they aren’t at all. I don’t think ultrasounds are covered by the CAS.

dominik: [00:09:55] They are, depending on the hospital. There are many hospitals that accept performing ultrasounds as part of the check-up and then they are covered by insurance. But, again, it is up to the hospital and it depends on what kind of contract the hospital has with the CAS, especially when it comes to pregnant people. It is important to know that this ultrasound is necessary for receiving abortion pills, but the ultrasound machine, I think, only identifies the pregnancy at about 4 weeks, 4-5 weeks, so it is absurd. You, as a hospital, say you only do abortions up to 5-6 weeks, when that person doesn’t even know they are pregnant at the time. This is why I have worked a lot with Women Help Women, as Corina was saying, because they don’t ask for this ultrasound, but only for the date of the last menstruation. And then this somehow reduces that extraordinary pressure that the Romanian health system puts on people who want to have an abortion. This is about what the landscape looks like now, when it comes to the legality of abortion in Romania. It is legal, but practically a struggle.

robi: [00:10:58] I know that there have been multiple studies throughout the years. FILIA, I think, did a study where they literally called hospitals and a very big percentage said they don’t do [abortions]. Even though, theoretically, they are public hospitals, which, normally, should do them. A very big percentage of them. There are entire counties where there is no hospital that does elective abortions.

dominik: [00:11:20] In the last few years, from what I remember, from the numbers I saw, I think there were 3 counties in 2024 that reported zero elective abortions. And we find it hard to believe that there wasn’t even one elective abortion in that county. Yes? And this is a big issue, because we don’t have a clear, such a clear image. Public hospitals report because they have to. They are public hospitals. Private clinics don’t always report. So there is probably a difference between the numbers we have form the National Public Health Institute and the reality in the field, which, of course, is extremely different and could never be represented through numbers, regardless of how much you try to regulate this part. Because not all private clinics - and, yeah, a big portion of abortions happen in private as well, as we previously said, especially where public hospitals completely refuse to do them. It is up to the person that owns the private clinic - if they want to report, they report, if not, then they don’t.

robi: [00:12:27] And it is clear that the situation is influence by the political situation in the country. I am thinking especially about this proportion in which doctors refuse procedures for ethical or religious reasons as well. Or, as you said, because of the pressure from quote-unquote pro-life groups. If you want us to talk a little about what this political landscape looks like in Romania. Polls for the parliamentary elections show that the far right has about 40 percent of the votes in Parliament. We know that the right in Romania takes a lot of inspiration from the far right in the United States. No? We remember the scene with the clown that is Simion, who went on a delegation to Trump, and Trump didn’t receive him, but he went to cut a cake in the shape of Greenland with someone from there. This is the level they are at.

robi: [00:13:17] And there, in the USA, in 2022, this law, Roe v. Wade, was overturned, which was a major victory of the right. Refulating abortion rights at a federal level, if I am not mistaken. Now, various legal initiatives trying to restrict abortion rights, directly or indirectly, have started popping up here as well. They are all sorts of shady things, especially put forward by the far right. If you would like us to talk a little about this part, adn especially if you know, in particular, exactly what legal propositions are being passed around. And if not, just in general, to talk a little.

corina: [00:13:54] Yes, after 1989 there have been multiple legal initiatives that sought either to completely ban or to limit abortion through various ways. And the most recent ones take a lot of inspiration the States. One of these legal propositions was right in 1997, 7 years after the overturning of the decree, that wanted to ban abortion and contraception completely. In 2012, there was another legal initiative, which wanted to force people to take part in a counselling session, to look at the embryo’s ultrasound and such things. All there legal propositions failed because there was big public pressure.

corina: [00:14:39] And the last one that appeared this year, in september 2025, when two representatives elected on the POT [r.n.: a far right party] lists submitted a legal proposal through which, they say, they want to ensure additional criminal protection to the fetus. Which we see very clearly is inspired from other laws, from the States. And, actually, the law would reduce the period in which an abortion can be performed, it would criminalize therapeutic abortion and it would make it possible to punish people who support someone who has an abortion. At this time, the Senate rejected the proposal and it is in the Commons, from what we know.

corina: [00:15:21] What we think is going to happen, more likely than a law to completely ban abortion - because we have a striking history that is still present in the collective memory - they will try, again through legal loopholes. We already see this pretext of protecting the fetus. I think the discourse about increasing the birth rate will gain more and more ground. And we expect the fight against abortion to intensify, because the ides of control over the body is central to conservative and fascite governments. We expect to see the anti-abortion organizations more, being more active, more present in public, and for them to make life difficult for those that offer support. These ways, though indirect, shouldn’t be subestimated, because we are where we are, in which abortion is inaccessible. Very many doctors refuse. As I said earlier, so many public hospitals don’t perform the procedure. And all these are the result of the pressure of anti-abortion organisations and the indifference, to say the least, of the state.

dominik: [00:16:36] One thing that I didn’t add earlier and that Corina mentioned now, when talking about this new initiative that would create this grey area, is that at present, if you have an abortion, be it legal or illegal, nothing happens to you as the pregnant person. If you get an abortion on your own, nothing happens to you. This is why, every time we have people who don’t know, have pills are are scared - what they’ll say at the hospital - always, you, as someone who had an abortion, can say “I took this pill, I took that pill” and nothing will happen to you. You don’t answer ciminally for these things. In the Criminal Law, indeed, it is there to protect from doctors or people who try to force the person to have an abortion or perform illegal procedures that lead to the death of the person getting the abortion. Yes, so this is what features in the Criminal Law. But you, as a person getting an abortion, don’t answer criminally for these things. So you can rest easy on this part.