Posted on 04/24/2024 9:42:02 AM PDT by Morgana
Opponents of the amendment question the wisdom of allowing medically unqualified groups access to women considering an abortion but the government counters the move is designed so prospective patients can be better informed.
Italy’s Senate has passed legislation which allows regions to permit groups “with a qualified experience supporting motherhood” to have access to women considering abortions at public clinics.
For the right-wing government, the amendment fulfils the original intent of the 1978 law legalising abortion, known as Law 194, which includes provisions to prevent the procedure and support motherhood.
But some in the medical profession have questioned the wisdom of allowing medically unqualified, anti-abortion groups access to women considering the procedure.
“Then you don't understand how you want to involve in the counselling centres and also in the hospitals, because this is already happening in some regions, characters that you don't know what qualification they have,” sais Silvana Agatone, the president of the pro-choice association LAIGA.
“Certainly they haven't studied, they haven't passed examinations to go and talk to women about topics for which the counselling centre already has highly qualified figures to deal with them."
Some opposition figures also complained that the bill had passed by circumventing due parliamentary process.
“We are forced to suffer this amendment that was decided by a part of this majority without a parliamentary debate, without any discussion, without allowing us to go deep into the topic,” said Democratic Party senator Beatrice Lorenzin.
Under Italian law, a women is permitted to have an abortion on request in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, or later if her health or life is endangered.
But easy access isn't always guaranteed. The law allows health care personnel to register as conscientious objectors and refuse to perform abortions, meaning women sometimes have to travel elsewhere to have the procedure.
Italy’s birth rate, already one of the lowest in the world, has been falling steadily for about 15 years and reached a record low last year with just 379,000 babies born.
But Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has dismissed opposition to the amendment as “fake news” and said that allowing those with a pro-life message into abortion clinics was only intended to fully inform women.
I believe that we must guarantee a free choice and I believe that to make a free choice you need to have all the necessary information. -- Giorgia Meloni Italian Prime Minister
“I believe that we must guarantee a free choice and I believe that to make a free choice you need to have all the necessary information. This is what the Law 194 foresees and I think this is the right thing to do,” she said earlier this year.
The fresh tensions over abortion in Italy come against the backdrop of developments in Europe going in the opposite direction.
France marked International Women's Day this year by inscribing the guaranteed right to abortion into its constitution. Last year, overwhelmingly Catholic Malta voted to ease the strictest abortion laws in the European Union.
And more recently, Polish lawmakers moved forward with proposals to lift a near-total ban on abortion enacted by the country's previous right-wing government.
Now if only it would happen in more countries.
Italy’s leadership may be more Christian than the Vatican’s leadership.
Lots more!
Definitely.
Wouldn’t be surprised if the Marxist, LGBTQRSTUV loving pope lobbied against it.
Italy needs more Italians . They should ban all abortions (and contraception )
They, and we, should also stop encouraging women to abandon their roles as mothers so that that they enter into the workforce. Many of today’s problems can be traced back to the rejection of the nature and roles of women.
“ For the right-wing government”
Euro news - another cesspool filled with leftist a-holes.
It has taken decades of propaganda to convince women to not be mothers and it will take decades to fix this mess unfortunately
...Frank should have a soon pronouncement supporting private property rights and whatever you do there.
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