ABSTRACT
Abortion—at one time the only "contraceptive device"—was prohibited by law and custom in post-feudal Hungary although private sanatoria frequently housed women who got abortions under a different medical guise or as a result of the existence of such medical reasons that necessitated the disruption of a pregnancy. In 1948, abortion was declared illegal and on February 18, 1953, the Council of Ministers, following the "suggestion" of Matyas Rakosi, Hungary's petty, brutal mini-Stalin, ordered ail abortions, except those truly necessary for medical reasons. Of course, the Catholic Church as a whole is opposed to birth control, but in Socialist Hungary the official relation of Church and state is such that no open opposition to birth control is voiced or could be voiced. Suffice it to say that if the Church's opposition to birth control were significant, it would have been more influential in slowing down abortion—a process it does not seem to have affected seriously.
