To find their way around the San Filippo Neri hospital, women who want to have an abortion should know how to read between the lines. The service for voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion) does, however, exist. It is mentioned, among all the others, at the entrance to this large Roman establishment, located in the northwest of the capital. But then, pfft!, his name disappears. Beyond the reception hall, only a simple A4 sheet provides visitors with information. Placed against a wall, the sign indicates “gynecological surgery” in large letters, then, in parentheses and in smaller letters, “law 194/78” – it is under this number, followed by its year of adoption, that the text authorizing abortion in Italy is commonly referred to.
So that the acronym IVG (voluntary intervention of gravidanza) reappears, you have to wait for the service door. And again: Marina Marceca, the head of the department, says she had to fight to impose this choice, against the opinion of the very Catholic director of this public hospital, who was upset by the mention.
These semantic modesties have no impact on the way patients are cared for at San Filippo Neri. Unlike many others, in a country where public health is underfunded, the structure benefits from a modern technical platform in obstetrics and gynecology. But they say a lot about the cloud of opprobrium that still surrounds abortion in the Peninsula, forty-six years after its legalization. Too often victims of humiliation from healthcare staff – “We had to think about it before”, patients sometimes say – many women give up on having an abortion, but also on testifying, for fear of being blamed.
The pressure from so-called “prolife” associations, Catholic in general, counts a lot in this anxiety-provoking climate. Some even manage to enter public hospitals, with the blessing of the authorities, to provide “emotional support” to women and, of course, try to dissuade them. In Italy, the number of abortions performed in 2021 (latest figures communicated by the Ministry of Health) amounted to 63,653, or 20,000 fewer than in 1988 and 171,000 fewer than in 1982, a record year . “There are 5.3 abortions per thousand women aged 15 to 49, compared to 9.4 in 2000 and 8 in 2009underlines Marina Marceca. This is one of the lowest rates in Europe. »
The decline does not correspond to an increase in the desire to have children, as evidenced by the famous “demographic winter” from which the Peninsula suffers: with 400,000 births in 2022, for 700,000 deaths, Italy could lose 20% of its population by 2070. It is also not directly correlated to the election, at the end of 2022, of Giorgia Meloni, the president of the council, from the ranks of the post-fascist Fratelli d’Italia party. In fact, she preceded her.
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