First of all, excuse me
for the long absence. A full-time job out of nowhere interfered with my plans of
spending all day long writing blogs about Italy! But now, on to the
second instalment of my theme on the catholic church and
reproductive freedom in Italy.
Abortion has been legal in
Italy since 1978. Due to
lobbying from Catholic organisations a condition was put into
legislation which allowed doctors to refuse to carry out abortions on
grounds of their religious beliefs. This is also the case in other
European countries, but after the jump I will get to why it is particularly
problematic in Italy.
Of course not all doctors
are even educated to carry out abortion, so in practical terms it
means that a person will study for a certain amount of years to
become a gynaecologist, after which that same person refuses to use
parts of his or her education on the basis of religion. (Using a lot
of resources to study something with the specific purpose of not
using it, anyone?) The only thing required to object is to fill out a
piece of paper, where the person in questions states oneself to be
obiettore di coscienza on the basis of being catholic, and no further
questions are asked.*)
This is of course in large part due to the inefficiency of Italian
bureaucracy, but at the same time it is a symptom of the profound power
of the Church.
A side note: the term
'Obiettore di conscienza' was originally used in relation with
compulsary military service. There were real consequences for those
who refused to do their military service, such as prison. Doctors are, in
contrast to this, actually protected by the law when they object, and
this use of the term seems to be somehow missing the point. See here.
Formerly the doctors not
carrying out abortions were not in the majority, but as the years
pass and the society increasingly (re)embrace Catholic values, the
stigma surrounding the carrying out of abortions is increasing, and the
doctors who carry out abortions are going into retirement while fewer and fewer newly graduated doctors wish to do abortions.
This is for various
reasons, but one of them is that a doctor who carries out abortions
risks that this become the only thing the person will ever get to do
professionally. This is first of all because there are so few doctors
doing abortions in Italy that there is not enough qualified staff to
carry through the operation, and second it is because the association with
a work that is increasingly considered 'immoral' means that it
becomes almost impossible to get a promotion, change departments,
etc. Due to the negative consequences associated with carrying out
abortions, fewer and fewer people choose it as a specialisation, and
some people become 'obiettori' for reasons purely related to their
professional career plans.
At this point there are
already hospitals, particularly in the Southern Italy (where people
traditionally are more religious), where it is impossible to get a
therapeutical abortion for lack of qualified doctors, completely
regardless the background for the wish for one, including
life-threatening reasons. Moreover, it is estimated that it within
the next five years will be completely impossible to get an abortion in the
public healthcare system in Italy – in 2011 there were 150 doctors
in the entire Italy that carry out abortions. (The private sector is
a completely different story, but trust me, there is something to discuss!)
Abortion in Italy is
not considered a sort of contraception (I doubt it is so anywhere
else either), and there has to be a justification for the abortion,
e.g. the health of mother or child, pregnancy due to rape, economy
(the lack of ability to support the child), or similar. The
legislation is more liberal than in Ireland, for example, but there
is still a large degree of control with abortions. When a doctor
objects due to religion, it is thus not against women having
abortions all over the place regardless of both their own health and
the expenses of the state (I don't think any women do this anywhere,
let this be clear). They object against a woman controlling her own
reproductive life and her own economical circumstances, and they
refuse to carry out abortions even in life-threatening circumstances.
When the lack of access to
abortion is combined with the lack of access to emergency
contraception, and when moreover one takes the Pope's position on
condoms into the calculation (they aggravate AIDS, are sinful and
should not be used), it means that the sexual life of women is
reduced to be about reproduction. If women do not wish to reproduce,
they will have to not have sex.
Don't get me wrong – if
women do not wish to have sex, they are more than welcome to not have
it, for all I care. But if they wish to have sex, and the
possibilities exist for controlling the diseases and pregnancies that
in former times were potential consequences hereof, then I consider
it a right to have access to these possibilities – that is, to
contraception. When the Catholic Church meddles with the access to
contraception and abortion for each and every inhabitant of Italy,
through the national legislation, it is meddling with the control of
these women over their own bodies and lives, regardless of whether
those women wish that the Church have any influence hereupon (be they
catholic or not).
It can, of course, be
argued that men are influenced by this, too, but considering that men
are not the ones becoming pregnant and having to give birth to the
potential child, the direct consequences for them are much smaller, and it is
much easier for a male to renounce all knowledge of conception and
thereby also the responsibility hereof. The Vatican's stand on
contraception is highly gendered, and its strong influence on Italian
society is a cocktail that means that there are strong limitations on
Italian women's sexual liberty and therewith also on their
possibilities for real equality with men on this area.
*) Oh,
the ever changing internets. My source for this piece of information
has disappeared since I wrote the text. It will be added when I find
it again.
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