According to the Mai Dati! report, there are as many as 31 healthcare facilities in Italy where 100 per cent of gynaecologists, anaesthetists, nurses or care assistants are conscientious objectors.
Is it really so easy to access voluntary termination of pregnancy in Italy? Even though the law permits it absolutely, in practice there are very often obstacles — and in some regions more than others.
There are as many as 31 (24 hospitals and 7 family planning clinics) healthcare facilities in Italy where 100 per cent of gynaecologists, anaesthetists, nurses or care assistants (Oss) are conscientious objectors. Nearly 50 facilities have a rate above 90 per cent, and more than 80 have an objection rate above 80 per cent.
This is the state of implementation of Law 194 on the voluntary termination of pregnancy in 2022, according to the "Mai Dati!" investigation conducted by Chiara Lalli, lecturer in History of Medicine at the University of La Sapienza, and Sonia Montegiove, IT specialist and journalist, and published with the support of the Luca Coscioni Association.
A map that, the association explains, came about because "the Ministry of Health's implementation report contains only national and regional data in pdf format. That is to say, closed data, aggregated only by region and last updated to 2019. What we need instead is open data, broken down by individual hospital facility. Only when data are open are they useful and can they provide information and knowledge. Only when data are open do they truly have meaning and allow women to choose which hospital to go to, knowing in advance what the percentage of conscientious objectors is at the facility they have chosen."
For this reason, the Luca Coscioni Association sent a request for generalised civic access to individual local health authorities and hospital units, asking for figures broken down by facility. It emerged that there are 11 regions in which at least one hospital has 100 per cent conscientious objectors: Abruzzo, Basilicata, Campania, Lombardy, Marche, Piedmont, Puglia, Sicily, Tuscany, Umbria and Veneto. The worst-performing regions are Sardinia and Sicily, with more than 80 per cent failing to respond to the generalised civic access request. In Andria (Puglia), both gynaecologists and non-medical staff are 100 per cent objectors. Also in Puglia, at the hospital hub of Francavilla Fontana, more than 90 per cent of gynaecologists, anaesthetists and nurses are objectors.
Yet the picture that emerges is, unfortunately, not all that surprising: this is not the first time Italy has come under scrutiny for its poor implementation of the right to abortion.
According to Filomena Gallo, lawyer and national secretary of the Luca Coscioni Association, "Law 194 is still poorly applied or even ignored in many parts of our country. Today we urgently call on Health Minister Roberto Speranza and Justice Minister Marta Cartabia to ensure that data on the implementation of Law 194 are available in an open format, of good quality, up to date and not aggregated. That it be made known how many non-objectors carry out voluntary terminations of pregnancy. That all regions genuinely provide the possibility of undergoing a pharmacological abortion on an outpatient basis."
And finally, that an indicator representative of the actual possibility of accessing termination of pregnancy in each region be included in the essential levels of care; and that the ministerial report be presented every year in compliance with Article 16 of Law 194 itself." Otherwise, it will be pointless to keep celebrating the steps forward taken by other countries on the issue, or to worry when others take steps backwards instead.
