[1] https://www.salute.gov.it/new/it/tema/salute-della-donna/
[2] https://www.salute.gov.it/new/it/tema/salute-della-donna/int...
Maybe they are free of charge, idk, but they doesn't seem to be free of judgement. From the article:
Even if an abortion seeker is within the 12 week gestational limit and has access to a local hospital, a doctor can turn them away on the basis of conscientious objection, which legally allows any doctor to deny a patient an abortion on moral grounds. In 2019, it was reported that 67% of Italian gynecologists were registered as conscientious objectors and multiple hospitals reported having a 100% conscientious objection rate.
Even finding a doctor seem to be an issue, because most of them would tell you that they are more moral than you think and wouldn't do an abortion.
If a care seeker can find a doctor who is willing to perform an abortion, they must endure a 7-day waiting period between their initial request for an abortion and the procedure (which can push care seekers past the 12 week gestational limit).
So they believe that women are probably mistaken and don't know what they want, don't they? Or maybe they just want to make it harder to fit abortion in the 12 week limit?
In April 2024, the Italian parliament passed a measure allowing anti-abortion activists to enter abortion consultation clinics.
These activists I'm sure wouldn't judge. No way. Would they?
Because, presumably, abortion is legal only in specific circumstances (first trimester, I imagine) and these websites are bypassing that.
FTFA:
> Today, Women on Web facilitates online access to abortion pills
I'd expect any website that provides access to non-over-the-counter pills is operating against the law. I mean, it'd be nice if I can buy antibiotics online, but I can't in my jurisdiction.
You sure about that? Unfortunately there's a thing called "obiezione di coscienza" (TL;DR: doctors opposing abortion because they're catholics). Feel free to translate this article: https://www.editorialedomani.it/fatti/aborto-obiezione-cosci...
I assume that this might be the reason why they got blocked--or if not a possibility.
I don't understand why women would need these websites, there are plenty of free resources like local hospitals and doctors who are generally completely fine with abortion.
Women seeking terminations in the first 90 days of pregnancy are protected under law 194.
From what I got, these organizations illegally sent women abortion pills.
At least when I was young and still living in Italy, you could walk into a hospital and they'd give you abortion pills or day after pills for free.
I guess it has to be a hospital/doctor and not a random website?
Not sure.
Understood, but the solution cannot be "allow prescription drugs to be sold online".
If access is not easy, there needs to be a different solution.
So, you think the government should force doctors to perform abortions, like putting them in jail if they don't want to do it?
So, these websites were being blocked because they were engaged in illegal activity.
I don't know why people are being so (deliberatively?) reductive ITT.
If the mother was raped and knows for sure she will not bring up her rapist's kid ... or if there is a possibility that letting the baby be born will kill the mother, MY belief is to follow the mother's wishes.
It's her body and her life.
I believe there’s something very wrong with your moral compass, pal.
I think it is like anorexia. Someone who has no control over their own lives tries to control the few things they can. An anorexic controls their food, but a married man controls his wife and kids. It makes even the weakest person feel strong to have someone to boss around.
You ignore that so many prominent anti-abortion activists are women. I think for example of Joanna Howe, [0] who is arguably the most prominent activist against abortion rights in contemporary Australia-and far from some “crotchety old man”, she is a 43 year old law professor.
Access to reproduction is one of the most basic resources a society has available. It is common for the old men to control the young men by being the ones to decide who gets access to women. "Work for us loyally, and we'll allow you to get married"
Such as Giorgia Meloni?
And in the US [1,2]:
2016 election: Approximately 39% to 42% of female voters cast their ballots for Trump.
2020 election: Approximately 44% of female voters cast their ballots for Trump.
2024 election: Approximately 46% of female voters cast their ballots for Trump
Like it or not -- and make no mistake, I don't like it -- many women want this.
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1: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voting-patte...
2: https://www.cfr.org/articles/women-voters-pivotal-role-elect...
Hang on, how is listening to the heartbeat mental torture?
Look, I'm generally pro-abortion, but I consider it a continuous spectrum and not a binary switch. At some fuzzy point the foetus is more than a collection of cells. The whole argument is "where is that point?"
Abortion 1 month after conception? I can't really argue against. Abortion 1 day before birth? That's clearly already a child and I will object.
If it was so clear-cut the issue wouldn't be so polarising.
I agree with you that it's a delicate issue, I really do. I'm also tired of taking infinite psychic damage trying to steel-man the arguments of people who are clearly not interested in operating at the level of steel.
There is no medical reason. It does not address rational part of decisiom making either. It is an attempt at forced emotional guilting by medical professional. And to drag you through it.
More people die from obesity, cars, flu, preventable illness, etc. But we discuss endless this one issue… it’s for political science reasons not humanity/moral/etc reasons.
I stand by this comment, downvote all you like folks.
The heartbeat develops in weeks 5-6 and can be heard around week 10. You can have a legal abortion in Italy until 90 days/~13 weeks.
AFAIK it’s 14 weeks in France and Spain, 18 weeks in Denmark and Sweden, 22 in NL etc. just for some context.
20-25% otherwise healthy pregnancies end spontaneously before the 12th week and it's a mechanism used in non-surgical abortion.
At the 8th week my SO's gynecologist made an offhand remark not to get attached just yet, because we were still within the window where that happens.
Why do so many people say this about women and their bodies? You seriously think the vast majority of women considering an abortion haven’t given it much thought? Should they all have to face more obstructions and guilt trips and patronizing lectures because a handful maybe don’t? It’s ridiculous.
As for the “heartbeat” standard, I’m not getting in to it, suffice to say that should not be a bar here for deciding a woman’s rights.
> I stand by this comment, downvote all you like folks.
I wasn’t going to until this part of your comment.
In Italy these services are thankfully not restricted in the same way they are in, say, America - but there are still plenty of life situations (like suffering SA from a family member) where shame, social pressures and threats can cause the regular medical system to be hard to access.
That is a far more reasonable scenario than "I just love popping abortion pills!"
We don't need random websites to hand out prescription drugs to kids.
Indeed, access must be made easy. Abortion, through a pill or otherwise, should be accessible anywhere, freely, and any medical record should be kept absolutely secret, including from the family, especially if she’s underage.
I don’t think that’s the direction they’re headed though. I’m pretty sure in fact the whole point of allowing stuff like objection of conscience is to make abortion less accessible.
Much better than--let's say--getting an MRI.
Looks like this thread has gotten the attention of weird activists that want to find injustice everywhere and jump to conclusion--as long as the conclusion is women oppressed and censored.
[EDIT: I see GP did reply to parent, and he apparently was making that asinine argument :-/ Oh well, at least I interpreted original GP comment charitably]
Big fine? Of course.
And please stop that abortion red herring. The overwhelming majority of abortions are carried out as contraceptive methods.
Society became much more complex than a tribal village where the elders decide everything, and so have the levels of indirection in how control of reproduction is wielded. The situation is also quite a bit more complicated now that populations are able to grow so far above the local carrying capacity of the land. Yet we can still trace a line back to when it was necessary for a community to collectively maintain the sustainability of their population by deciding how many children could be supported at any one time.
Drafts? They typically only targeted men, with a large possibility of maiming or death as the result.
The topic is not access to reproduction. Nobody is controlling access to pregnancy.
> the ones to decide who gets access to women.
Nor is access to women.