interupční komise (abortion commission).

In line with its relatively areligious culture, abortion was legalized in Czechoslovakia at the rather early date of 1957, but the communist-era government still restricted its availability. One of these restrictions was the requirement that women who sought an abortion along with the father of the child sit before a commission of doctors and nurses who had the power to grant or refuse their request. Though most abortions were granted, the process - likr most encounters with the communist state - was humiliating: women were typically upbraided or browbeaten by the commission and forced to involve fathers who had often done little more than impregnate them. Interestingly, the abortion rate has dropped since the fall of communism despite the introduction of abortion on demand.