Romania brought up in U.S. presidential debate

Romania was mentioned in the third and last presidential debate organized in the U.S. between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, on Wednesday morning. Talking about the abortion topic, Clinton said that the government should stay out of a woman’s decision to have an abortion, which is one of the most personal choices a woman can make. “I’ve been to countries where governments either forced women to have abortions, like they used to do in China, or forced women to bear children, like they used to do in Romania,” Hillary Clinton said. “And I can tell you, the government has no business in the decisions that women make with their families in accordance with their faith, with medical advice, and I will stand up for that right.” This was the second time when Hillary referred to Romania when talking about abortion in a public debate. In 2008, when she was competing against Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for President she said that a visit to Romania, where she met a group of women who had been forced by the Communist regime to give birth to as many children as possible, convinced her to become a supporter of women's right to abortion. Abortion was severely restricted in Romania during the leadership of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, to ensure demographic growth. Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days film, which brought the Romanian director the Palme d’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007, was based on this topic. The film tells the sad story of a young woman who discovers that she is pregnant and seeks an illegal abortion with the help of her classmate Otilia. Unfortunate circumstances force the two women to use a male abortionist, who puts the two girlfriends in extremely tense and uncomfortable situations. This was not the first time when Romania was mentioned in the U.S. presidential campaign. In March this year, Bernie Sanders, who was Hilary Clinton’s main opponent for the Democratic nomination, criticized the low Internet speed in the US by making a comparison between America and Romania in a Twitter post. Bernie Sanders’ tweet about the internet speed gets funny replies from Romania https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfdRmnT0Weo Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com (Photo source: Hillary Clinton on Facebook)