Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Mar 7 2008 (IPS) – Women have launched a renewed campaign in Italy against a move to overturn the right to abortion.
Women scientists, intellectuals and professionals are asking women to oppose a new clerical assault on women. They are fighting attempts by centre-right politicians and Catholic doctors associations to limit the current abortion law.
The law, upheld in a 1978 referendum, allows abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and until the 24th week if the mother s life is at risk or if the foetus is seriously malformed.
Its opponents say the law should be restricted in light of medical advances allowing survival of some foetuses born before 24 weeks.
Debate and demonstrations over the law followed a call by Giuliano Ferrara, conservative newspaper editor and minister in former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi s centre-right government, for a worldwide moratorium on abortion.
Ferrara said the United Nations should vote for a moratorium on abortion just as the world body has on the death penalty, to prevent millions of innocents from dying.
Related IPS Articles
Ferrara announced he will run for Parliament in the Apr. 13-14 election on an anti-abortion ticket, from his own List for Life party.
Backing Ferrara s initiative, Italy s Catholic Church rejected a national medical association statement that called on doctors last week to support the 30-year-old abortion law while also promoting campaigns for responsible procreation that would limit recourse to abortion.
Amedeo Bianco, president of the association, said the aim was not to encourage abortion, but the statement has been strongly condemned by Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops Conference.
Now challenging the obscene proposal of a moratorium on abortion, the women s petition published by the bimonthly magazine on politics and social issues Micromega asks political leaders to promote public debate over abortion, and take a clear stand on the issue in their political programmes.
The campaign has gathered more than 54,000 signatures in support of the present law. The women s appeal is directed particularly to centre-left candidates in the election.
Italy s law already gives medical staff the right to refuse pregnancy termination on grounds of conscience. According to official figures, 60 percent of Italy s gynaecologists have availed themselves of this option at some stage. This provision already places obstacles in the way of abortion, women s groups say.
To get an appointment for pregnancy interruption in a public hospital is extremely difficult, a doctor at a medical advice centre in Rome told IPS. The high number of conscientious objectors makes the process quite an odyssey for women, said the doctor, who did not wish to give her name.
With many outpatient departments open only an hour a week, waiting lists can be more than 15 days, she said. A woman may have to face prolonged preliminary discussions with pro-life volunteers, with scarce attention to confidentiality.
Those medical staff who do not object have reported they are marginalised by colleagues, and work in hostile conditions, the doctor said.
Gynaecologist Elisabetta Canitano works at the public Rome hospital Gian Battista Grassi, and is president of Vita di Donna (Woman s Life), a non-profit association of volunteer women doctors operating at a specialised surgery offering assistance freely to pregnant women.
Canitano told IPS that the current debate on abortion is the result of patriarchal-bishop thinking that a woman s body belongs to the community, and that women are not allowed to decide what to do with their body.
Official figures from the health ministry say that some 130,000 abortions are carried out in Italy annually. Most of these unexpected pregnancies are due to incorrect contraceptive practices, says Canitano. If these groups were honestly against abortion, all they had to do was to talk to people, even through media, and inform them the truth is that secure contraception is still scarcely known.
The debate is simply a cyclical wave of rage against women, says Canitano. We should be aware that a woman who is not in a favourable circumstance for having a child for whatever reason will find whichever way to abortion, even clandestinely. Nobody seems to remember how many women used to die as a consequence of insecure abortion performed clandestinely in the past. Thanks to the law (regulating abortion), such operations have reduced considerably in the last 30 years.
People backing the women s petition are asking for mandatory sex education in the schools, strengthening of public services in support of women, and focused health programmes for immigrant women who are reportedly more exposed to the risk of clandestine abortion.
