Italy’s gynaecologists demand government action to protect women’s abortion rights

Italian gynaecologists who support a woman’s right to abortion have warned that the procedure may become all but impossible within the next five to 10 years, as the current generation of pro-choice practitioners heads for retirement and the proportion of objectors rises.

In some regions of Italy the proportion of doctors who refuse to perform terminations in the first 90 days of a pregnancy has reached “shocking levels,” said the campaign group, Laiga (www.laiga.it)—the Free Association of Italian Gynaecologists for the Application of Law 194.

The group’s president, Silvana Agatone, a gynaecologist at Rome’s Sandro Pertini Hospital, said that the eponymous law, which was introduced in 1978 …