Abortion, in Italy, remains a service that is difficult to access. There are 31 health facilities – 24 hospitals and 7 counseling centers – with the 100 percent conscientious objectors, among gynecologists, anesthetists, nurses or Oss. About fifty are those with a percentage higher than 90% and more than 80 those with a number of objectors that exceeds 80%.
It signals it the “Never Data!”conducted on over 180 structures by Chiara Lalli, professor of History of Medicine, and Sonia Montegiove, IT and journalist, and presented by the Luca Coscioni association a few days after the 44th anniversary of the entry into force of law 194.
This survey, with generalized civic access, highlighted a situation that the ministerial report does not reveal, publishing the closed and aggregated data by Region. The Coscioni association also reports that the latest report from the Ministry of Health, which was presented to parliament last year, refers to data for 2019.
“Having a clear picture of the state of health of this law is unfortunately not easy, precisely because we do not have updated and detailed data,” said Filomena Gallo, lawyer and National Secretary of the Luca Coscioni Association. “But one thing is very clear: Law 194 is still poorly applied or even ignored in many areas of our country “.
The “Never data” survey indicates that the assessment of the number of objectors and non-objectors is often very far from reality. “In fact, we must know, among the non-objectors, who actually carries out the voluntary interruptions of pregnancy (in some hospitals some non-objectors only perform ultrasound scans, or there are non-objectors who work in hospitals where there is no IVG service and therefore do not perform any) “, say Chiara Lalli and Sonia Montegiove, authors of the survey, who in June will be published by Fandango Libri with the title «Never given. Open data (on 194)“. “The national percentage of gynecologists who are not conscientious objectors (which according to the Report is 33%) must therefore be further reduced because not all non-objectors perform voluntary terminations of pregnancy. It is not enough to know the average percentage of objectors per region to know if access to voluntary termination of pregnancy is really guaranteed in a specific health facility. Why get an abortion is a medical service and cannot be a treasure hunt“.
The request of Filomena Gallo, to the Minister of Health Roberto Speranza and to the Minister of Justice Marta Cartabia, is to make the data on the application of law 194 available, so that “they are in an open format, of quality, updated and not aggregated”. And, again, «that it is known how many non-objectors are who carry out voluntary interruptions of pregnancy and the operators who carry them out after the first trimester; that all regions really offer the possibility of performing voluntary pharmacological interruptions of pregnancy on an outpatient basis; that a representative indicator of the effective possibility of accessing voluntary termination of pregnancy in each region is included in the Leas; and that the ministerial report be presented every year in compliance with article 16 of the same 194 ”.
Source: Vanity Fair
