Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu signs Decree 770 in 1966, prohibiting abortion and birth control in and effort to increase Romania’s population by two million newborns. Only the brightest and best of the children were chosen, intended to be Ceaușescu’s army against the world.

It was among these children that Dana (Vasile) Achim was born. Of the traits that defined the Children of the Decree—strength of mind and body—it was Dana’s relentless need to question everything that set her apart and would save countless children’s lives…as well as her own.

An investigative reporter, The Children of the Decree follows the author through her life under Ceaușescu’s brutal communism, to the discoveries of her family’s secrets, the false abolition of Romania’s Roe V. Wade, her tragic love story in Vermont, and her determined efforts to root out child trafficking.

A fearless advocate of social justice and of speeding needed social reforms—a willful thorn in the side of Romania’s Minister of Justice and President Emil Constantinescu—Dana fought to reveal corruption, injustice, and the mistakes of a still vulnerable justice system in Romania. With a forward by famed Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci, Dana lays bare her soul, bringing about powerful change in her native country and in the lives of the Children of the Decree.

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