The right to choose: everything you don’t know about abortion

“The 194 is not touched”. We women hear it all the time, and perhaps we repeat it firmly, every time our right to terminate a pregnancy is questioned. Which happens all too often, in fact. A right, that safe abortion, which should be acquired, untouchable, inalienable, the right of every woman to freely choose whether to be a motherregardless of the circumstances, often becomes the object of attacks: how can this happen?

The right to choose

He explains it Simona De Ciero, a young reporter from Turinwho with his first book The right to choose he put together the pieces of a story, that of the right to abortion, trying to join the pieces of a puzzle that unfortunately has many holes scattered here and there. Holes found in many countries where it is not possible to abort, or in which this right does not belong to women but to their partners, husbands, boyfriends. They are found in the USA, where a Supreme Court ruling recently effectively eliminated the constitutional guarantee of the right to abortion, paving the way for a ban that is growing alarmingly in many states. They are also found in Italywhere in the very first days of activity of the new Parliament, Forza Italia senator Maurizio Gasparri presented two bills to establish the “Nascent Life Day”, much desired by the movements opposed to abortion, and “to amend article 1 of the civil code regarding the recognition of the legal capacity of the conceived”, giving the fetus the same legal rights as the woman who carries it in her womb and paving the way, in fact, for a revision of the 194.

«I felt the journalistic and narrative urgency to write a book that spoke of abortion in the world as quickly as possible: a fundamental right of women, which instead of evolving is creaking even in the most democratic and progressive countries», explains Simona De Ciero.

The story of a right that should belong to all women is addressed in the book through their voice. Eight true stories – protected by fictitious names – of people who have made their experience available to others, to say what is not yet known on the subject, and help the new generations to face it with conscience. “I would really like this book to become a tool for all women who are in the position of having to choose,” says De Ciero. “Don’t feel alone. There are millions of people who have found themselves in the same condition as you. Simply feel free to choose, whatever your decision. No one should have to take it for you.”

Five things you don’t know about abortion

The right to choose it is a formative, didactic, educational book. Why, in general, the information available to women on the topic of voluntary termination of pregnancy is often confused and fragmented, and this certainly does not help them to make an informed decision.

It’s hard to really believe that you don’t know such an important right in depth. And yet, Simona De Ciero manages to show us that this is the case, by listing us at least five things we don’t know about the subject.

1) Many women choose to carry out the therapeutic abortion (in case of problems of the child incompatible with life, for example) abroad.

“The reason is that in Italy, after the first trimester of gestation and in particular after the fourteenth week, abortion occurs through induction into labor, without routinely carrying out the so-called “feticide””, explains Simona De Ciero. «This means adding trauma to trauma, also because it can happen that the fetus, once expelled, has some vital reactions. In many specialized clinics abroad, however, the operation is carried out with the method of dilatation and instrumental evacuation under anesthesia preceded, if the pregnancy is advanced, by an injection into the uterus which causes the death of the fetus before its expulsion”. .

2) Public abortion is not easily accessible to women in all Italian regions

«According to the latest Report of the Ministry of Health, in Italy there are 2,958 gynecologists who work in the departments where Voluntary Terminations of Pregnancy are performed, but of these 64.6% are objectors», explains De Ciero. «Even if the most anti-abortion city in Italy is Bolzano, with 84.5% of objecting gynecologists, the truth is that the amount of personnel who refuse to perform abortions rises as one descends along the axis of the boot . In Sicily the objection reaches peaks of 81.6%, without counting the case of Calabria: here, if it is true that the objecting doctors are “only” 67.6%, the total number of gynecologists in the Region is just 71 . This occurs despite the fact that article 9 of law 194 specifies how the Regions must ensure that conscientious objection does not in fact inhibit the right to voluntary interruption of pregnancy».

3) Every woman has the right to have all the information on abortion, even if the attending physician is an objector

“Physicians, even objectors, have a duty to assist patients beyond their personal position and not deny them essential health information,” explains the author. «We should always be assisted and informed, just as we should be able to administer the small RU486 directly in the clinics, as per the latest guidelines from the Ministry of Health. The truth, however, is that this only happens in Lazio and Emilia Romagna because in the end it is the individual Regions that make the territorial regulations, and most have decided otherwise ».

4) You can have an abortion and “feel great”

«”Everyone can experience abortion as they want, but no one has the right to tell you how you should live it”: this is what the psychologist Federica Di Martino explained to me, who in 2018 founded the blog together with the feminist Elisabetta Cannitano I miscarried and I’m fine», says Simona De Ciero. «The work that the association does is unhinge the sense of guilt linked to the voluntary termination of pregnancyand that’s a very important thing. Often there is a trauma that goes on for a lifetime and which perhaps does not depend on the real condition: how much of that sense of guilt is the result of lived experience and how much instead of our cultural heritage? Everyone has the right to live this experience with their own emotional inclination”.

5) Law 194 should really be reformed

“Law 194 is a fundamental law, but it was promulgated almost fifty years ago, in a historical and social context very different from the one we live in today,” explains the author. «It is a law that is the result of a series of compromises and a very tiring process. The result is not a law that defends the right to abortion, but that protects responsible motherhood and allows for voluntary termination of pregnancy. The woman’s free will, her right to choose, is not even taken into consideration. There is certainly an attempt at closure by the more conservative political side, and it doesn’t surprise me. What amazes me is that in fifty years no more progressive voice has found a way to open up even more to abortion as a fundamental right, as a right to health”.

More stories from Vanity Fair that may interest you:

-Abortion in Italy: the right to defend

-The denied right: investigation into abortion in Italy

– Let’s face it