According to some, like the Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano, the small republic of San Marino, landlocked in the mountains between Emilia-Romagna and the Marches, voted, Sunday, September 26, “To get out of the Middle Ages”. For others, on the other hand, it was above all a question of getting out of hypocrisy.
Forty-three years after the adoption by Italy of “law 194”, authorizing the voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion), the citizens of San Marino were called upon to make the same choice, by referendum. At the end of a very animated campaign, in which the supporters of the status quo gave a lot of voice, the response of the voters was clear and without discussion: to more than 77.3%, they chose to repeal the law which penalized abortion on the soil of the republic. From now on, abortion will be possible up to twelve weeks of pregnancy, and beyond this date in the event of a health risk.
No prosecution since 1978
Until then, abortion was severely punished in San Marino. According to articles 153 and 154 of the penal code, adopted in 1865, this act was punishable by six months to three years in prison – the only mitigating circumstance provided for being the fact that the woman was not married. As for the doctor who would have decided to perform an abortion on French soil, he was facing a six-year prison sentence, even if the patient’s health was at stake.
But this ban no longer existed in practice: in fact, the women of San Marino had only to travel a few kilometers to go and have an abortion, at their expense, in Italy. Thus, since the authorization of abortion in the Peninsula in 1978, no one has been prosecuted in San Marino under these two very repressive articles, which have become ineffective.
Still, the symbolic weight of the vote on Sunday evening is considerable, despite the low turnout (41% of those registered). It is all the more so since this progress was obtained thanks to the work of the activists of the Union of Women of San Marino (UDS), an association very active in the 1970s and 1980s, which was reformed in 2019 with the aim of obtaining the decriminalization of abortion. These have collected more than 3,000 signatures (a considerable figure in the case of a republic of 35,000 inhabitants), forcing the organization of a popular initiative referendum.
For lack of polls, banned in San Marino, the two camps campaigned blindly, without any indication of the degree of mobilization of the two camps.
Years of effort
Faced with pro-abortion activists supported by the whole of the left and by several associations of civil society, the main political formation of the country, the San Marino Christian Democratic Party (PDCS), and the local Church, remained very influential, put all their relays into play, highlighting the Vatican’s positions and benefiting from the support of the Italian anti-abortion movements, which organized several demonstrations on the spot and deployed, a few days before the election, a gigantic billboard “Stop abortion”, Italian side, a few meters from the border.
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