With the report “Pharmacological abortion in Italy: between delays, opposition and international guidelines”, we have captured the lights and shadows of the situation in our country through data, interviews and testimonies. The campaign “The Impossible Pill”, with the ironic language of Laura Formenti, who crossed Italy from Sicily to the top of Mont Blanc, denounces the difficulties in accessing medical abortion, a human right that is still too often ignored.
Together with Laura Formenti we left Palermo and crossed Italy. We arrived at the top of Mont Blanc to demonstrate [note the single pill inside the sealed container in the photo] and denounce how far Italy is from the WHO directives.
Stage after stage, meeting after meeting, the difficulties emerge in contacting consultants and finding information on pharmacological abortion and the process to access it, the problem of scientific counter-information, the issue of conscientious objection and too long times to obtain an appointment that are poorly suited to the 9 (in some regions still 7) weeks permitted by law, up to the social stigma surrounding pregnancy termination and the loneliness in which women who decide to have an abortion often find themselves.
The journey, the numbers and the testimonies of healthcare personnel, activists and patients collected throughout Italy, highlights the still strong inequalities in access to abortion care with respect to pharmacological abortion, with some good practices, many territorial differences and various local choices that seem dictated more by political or ideological motivations than by scientific evidence.
SOURCE: The Impossible Pill, by Medici del Mondo (In Italian and English), 2023 (undated)