Thinking about my final project…ABORTION

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Besides elections, there’s another big issue which is causing a bit of upset in Italy during these first months of 2008: abortion.

Exactly 30 years after the Law 194, which legalized induced abortion in Italy within 90 days since conception, the issue is again very controversial. As for my project, my idea is to discuss abortion in Italy and America as objectively as possible; however, I read the whole 194 law before writing this post, and I’d like to express my opinion about it in a few lines. I’m a Catholic person perfectly convinced that abortion should never be used to interrupt a pregnancy that could be avoided at the origin through contraceptive methods, but I also think that, in some specific cases, a woman has the right to choose for her life and for that of her baby. I find the 194 a very “human” law. Already the title, “NORME PER LA TUTELA SOCIALE DELLA MATERNITA’ E SULL’INTERRUZIONE VOLONTARIA DELLA GRAVIDANZA” (and not “abortion law”), explicitly shows that its first aim is not birth control (see art.1). From a legal point of view, it’s a well-balanced attempt to safeguard the rights of the foetus and the woman and to respect the medical staff’s belief too, i.e. whether to practice abortion or not as a doctor. This is a good law; the problem is how it is applied sometimes! The ethical questions “Is abortion a good or bad thing? or “Is the foetus already a human being?” are very complex and sensitive issues; undoubtedly, they would be worth a post; however they’re outside the purpose of my project.

Let’s explain, on the other hand, when and why this big debate about abortion started in Italy. On December 18, 2007 the United Nations Organization approved the moratorium (“an official stopping of an activity for a period of time” from Longman Dictionary) on death penalty. This event led to “a great thinking” about the right to life and, consequently, about abortion in the mass media in Italy (read the article). In January, the cultural organization Web Radio on the Air started a huge provocation, the Universal Moratorium for the Abolition of the Punishment of Abortion. At the beginning of February, the editor of the Italian newspaper Il_Foglio, Giuliano Ferrara, took this provocation to set a new political party “Aborto? No grazie. Per la moratoria con Giuliano Ferrara ” which aims to bring the cause of abortion in the next Parliament (read the article or watch the video). Ferrara is widely supported by the Church, pro-life movements and all the people who are openly against abortion and consider it like homicide.

These months abortion is a hot topic also because of some bad news reported by Italian mass media. Some weeks ago, the TV programme Le Iene broadcasted a video about some doctors who declared to be conscientious objectors and, thus, refused to carry out legal abortion in public hospital, but then they accepted to perform back-street abortion till over 5 months of pregnancy in their private practices. One month ago, a gynaecologist committed suicide in Genoa because he was accused of performing illegal abortion under the payment of 500 euros to women who wanted to end an unwanted pregnancy without following the legal procedure (read the article). In Naples the police raided a hospital where a woman was having abortion because her child suffered from Klinefelter's_syndrome. The police had received an anonymous report saying that foeticide was being committed in that hospital, which then proved not to be true. This caused a big scandal within women’s movements too (see the article).

To sum up, 30 years after the achievement of legal abortion (1978-2008), Italians are still deeply divided between for and against abortion: someone defines abortion of unhealthy embryos as eugenics; someone else calls it genocide perfectly authorized and financed by the State; someone believes it is a fundamental right of the woman to choose whether to abort or not.

I think that the project I’m going to do with my peers in collaboration with the Dickinson College students is a great chance to compare Italian and American culture and see how these two coutries have faced this big ethical issue so far. Below you find a list of points that could be discussed in an objective way.

PROJECT PLAN

- A comparison between Italian and American abortion laws to see similarities and differences, strong and weak points (late abortion term, i.e. how late abortion can be performed legally, parental notification for minors and privacy for non-adults, government funding, i.e. if health care covers abortion, etc.) and, given that legal access to abortion vary somewhat by state in the US, to see which states are more restrictive.

- A look at the methods of abortion which are legalized in the two countries: for example I know that in the US and most European countries the abortion pill Ru486 has been legalized for several years, while it will probably be available in Italian hospitals only since this year.

- Statistics: the trend of abortion rates in the two countries, differences between North and South, native people and immigrants, teenagers and adults.

- Measures taken to prevent abortion (ex. family advisory bureaux in hospitals).

- The position on abortion of US and Italian candidates in 2008 elections.

- Abortion and religion: influence of the Church and Christian movements in the two countries (such as “Il Movimento per la Vita” in Italy e “Moral Majority” in the USA).