It wasn?t only in a hospital that you could have an abortion, but I had one in a hospital, because I knew someone there who was into that sort of thing. It was just like in the movies, I had to be there at a certain time, we sneaked through corridors, looked everywhere before making a step, all the lights off, so that nobody could see us. Then finally, the corridor leading to the isolated, hidden place where everything occurred. The room was lit by a lamp only, and by the time I got on the table, I didn?t know what was happening to me. I told myself that it was my choice and I had to go al the way. But when I saw what she was holding, I thought: Will I get out of this room alive? Will I ever see my baby? She was using a probe, a shoehorn which she just took out of her pocket, god knows whether it was clean or not. Therefore a shoehorn, a perfusion tube, which at least had been sealed and which she would put inside; through the tube she would insert a knitting needle. Then she pumped in saline solution. The pain was unbearable, but you had to suffer it all... She could have perforated your uterus with that knitting needle, you could get an infection, or die. It was too late to change my mind. 15 more minutes and that was it. I got up, I left, and luckily for me, the next morning I started bleeding and went to the doctor for curettage. On that night the doctor I knew was on call, he called the respective doctor, he performed the operation on me; the anesthetics he used was a local one, Novocain,  but had no effect on me, so I went through excruciating pain.

You had to pay to have an abortion. Not much, some 200 lei or something like that. The price varied depending on the doctor, the nurse, whether you wanted anesthetics, etc. You had to put a 50 lei bill in her pocket, for her to remember you next time. But you prayed to God there would not be a next time.

You could also have an abortion at home, with assistance from an old lady or somebody who knew what to do.

There were no contraceptives to buy, or you could find them very rarely. What could you use instead? The calendar mainly, or other methods.. I heard that someone used aspirins. If you a pharmacist you asked him to prepare contraceptives for you. Sometimes they were efficient, it depended whether the pharmacist had put in the right amount of quinine or whatever they used.

The old ladies pulled your uterus; it was like going to the gynecologist, both used the same method. They would hold your uterus with the fingers and pinched it somehow, I don?t really know what happened really, but many times it yielded results. The most common method was the probe, made usually of a perfusion tube. The actual probe were some plastic things with a round head and a hole in it.

Some women had an abortion by themselves, but it was very dangerous. (I. H., 30)