[1] https://www.salute.gov.it/new/it/tema/salute-della-donna/
[2] https://www.salute.gov.it/new/it/tema/salute-della-donna/int...
Maybe they are free of charge, idk, but they doesn't seem to be free of judgement. From the article:
Even if an abortion seeker is within the 12 week gestational limit and has access to a local hospital, a doctor can turn them away on the basis of conscientious objection, which legally allows any doctor to deny a patient an abortion on moral grounds. In 2019, it was reported that 67% of Italian gynecologists were registered as conscientious objectors and multiple hospitals reported having a 100% conscientious objection rate.
Even finding a doctor seem to be an issue, because most of them would tell you that they are more moral than you think and wouldn't do an abortion.
If a care seeker can find a doctor who is willing to perform an abortion, they must endure a 7-day waiting period between their initial request for an abortion and the procedure (which can push care seekers past the 12 week gestational limit).
So they believe that women are probably mistaken and don't know what they want, don't they? Or maybe they just want to make it harder to fit abortion in the 12 week limit?
In April 2024, the Italian parliament passed a measure allowing anti-abortion activists to enter abortion consultation clinics.
These activists I'm sure wouldn't judge. No way. Would they?
Should doctors be forced to perform <P:procedure> they don't ~~condone~~[A:believe is medically safe and appropriate for a diagnosis|B:wish to support or endorse on non-medical grounds].
To me, and for most reasonable people I've properly been able to have a conversation with on this subject, the answer is universally an emphatic NO for the vast majority of possible procedures P, in both cases A and B. However, where things diverge is that most people believe there should be consequences for the doctor refusing on grounds B to perform a procedure other doctors would consider to fit the criteria of A, for virtually every P I've thought of. These consequences typically include removal of their license to practice medicine, and may include civil or criminal penalties in egregious cases where a doctor might claim religious objection to something like CPR in a situation where they were the only doctor working at an ER and the CPR was clearly medically necessary, for example.
Because, presumably, abortion is legal only in specific circumstances (first trimester, I imagine) and these websites are bypassing that.
FTFA:
> Today, Women on Web facilitates online access to abortion pills
I'd expect any website that provides access to non-over-the-counter pills is operating against the law. I mean, it'd be nice if I can buy antibiotics online, but I can't in my jurisdiction.
Not really true. They've been repeatedly shown in studies to be safe for home use. They're evaluating packaging and instructions for possible OTC sale in the the future:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/articl...
In that case I fully support the organisations involved to campaign to make abortion pills OTC legal. That does not mean that I support them skirting the law as it is now.
The heartbeat develops in weeks 5-6 and can be heard from around week 10. You can have a legal abortion in Italy until 90 days/~13 weeks.
AFAIK it’s 14 weeks in France and Spain, 18 weeks in Denmark and Sweden, 22 in NL etc. just for some context.
20-25% otherwise healthy pregnancies end spontaneously before the 12th week and it's a mechanism used in non-surgical abortion.
At the 8th week my SO's gynecologist made an offhand remark not to get attached just yet, because we were still within the window where that happens.
Why do so many people say this about women and their bodies? You seriously think the vast majority of women considering an abortion haven’t given it much thought? Should they all have to face more obstructions and guilt trips and patronizing lectures because a handful maybe don’t? It’s ridiculous.
As for the “heartbeat” standard, I’m not getting in to it, suffice to say that should not be a bar here for deciding a woman’s rights.
> I stand by this comment, downvote all you like folks.
I wasn’t going to until this part of your comment.
To this day, despite having taken them for the past 30 years, I still require a new prescription for Adderall because society deemed the addiction risk too high to avoid inserting a doctor into the equation every 30 days.
Abortifacients can cause the death of the person taking them. That’s something no one wants.
Can some people manage the risks of prescription medication on their own? Yes, but like with Adderall, society tends to lean towards caution and considers a doctor’s visit to be morally neutral as doctors aren’t expected to moralize and guilt but perform a medical service.
Personally, I think a doctor who guilts someone over medication should have their license revoked. There’s a time and place for such feelings but medical interventions are life and death.
So I deliberately chose to steel-man the argument.
They are of course free to destroy their credibility and end civil discussion, but I didn't want to do it for them.
Hang on, how is listening to the heartbeat mental torture?
Look, I'm generally pro-abortion, but I consider it a continuous spectrum and not a binary switch. At some fuzzy point the foetus is more than a collection of cells. The whole argument is "where is that point?"
Abortion 1 month after conception? I can't really argue against. Abortion 1 day before birth? That's clearly already a child and I will object.
If it was so clear-cut the issue wouldn't be so polarising.
Not your body, not your choice.
Late stage abortions in order to protect the live of the pregnant woman happen. Unviable pregnancies happen. You know what happens in countries where abortion laws are so strict that even a medical emergency will land the doctor in legal trouble? The pregnant woman dies during or before childbirth.
> Hang on, how is listening to the heartbeat mental torture?
It's guilt-tripping based on an unscientific view of pregnancy. A foetus' heart starts beating way before it is even remotely close to being a child rather than a lump of cells.
> If it was so clear-cut the issue wouldn't be so polarising.
It's polarising because the topic is so very useful to get religious people who want to impose their holy book on everyone else to vote for you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
> unscientific view of pregnancy
As of 2018, a study found that 95% of all biologists affirm the biological view that a human's life begins at fertilization.
> being a child rather than a lump of cells
A child is an individual organism of the species Homo sapiens. Since the majority of biologists (who are the de facto subject matter experts here) affirm that human life begins at fertilization, your opinion is patently unscientific.
You may argue, as some do, that there are cases, including abortion, where it is permissible to take a human life, however your opinion as expressed is in fact unscientific, and I would encourage you to question the cogency of your conclusions.
[0]: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3211703
A normal sane reaction is “yeah, there’s already a working cardiovascular system, better stop it before the organism develops even further.”
This said, it’s an obviously pointless and harmful delay. There is no reason to check a heartbeat of a fetus if a mother decides she doesn’t want to carry it.
No one's saying abortion should be possible at 8 months. At 6 weeks when there's a heartbeat it's barely a bag of cells.
In my personal opinion, though I am a bit in the fringe, person-hood doesn't come into being until a few years of development though if a baby is born and the family can't take care of it that's obviously a case where adoption would be preferred. Child rearing is a big life changing responsibility and I generally think it should only be undertaken voluntarily though the societal requirements and supports for child rearing in nearly all of the world put reasonable constraints on how far we can move in that direction[1].
1. As an example: financial obligations for child support are absolutely justified in societies where the financial strain on single parents isn't otherwise accounted for.
Sibling poster actually did say that; even moved the line further out.
>> Abortion 1 day before birth? That's clearly already a child and I will object.
> Not your body, not your choice.
Yes people do, what? It's legal in like at least 8 US states
How about if the state decided that it wouldn't force you to donate your organs to some dying person who needed them, but every time there was a person who needed your your organs and you declined you would have to sit and listen to their heartbeat for 20 minutes. Really sit and think about the person you're deciding to kill. After all, if you don't give your body to someone who needs it, you've killed them.
You'd be cool with that, right?
So for people who won't debate on anything but that axiom, it's important to point out the major issues with it.
There is no medical reason. It does not address rational part of decisiom making either. It is an attempt at forced emotional guilting by medical professional. And to drag you through it.
More people die from obesity, cars, flu, preventable illness, etc. But we discuss endless this one issue… it’s for political science reasons not humanity/moral/etc reasons.
I agree with you that it's a delicate issue, I really do. I'm also tired of taking infinite psychic damage trying to steel-man the arguments of people who are clearly not interested in operating at the level of steel.
Clearly you believe in the primacy of preserving life. I am wondering if your belief extends to after the child is born?
Are you suggesting that, because I object to abortion a day before delivery, that I must be some kind of misogynistic monster?
Because that's where the line is drawn in this current subthread - 1 day before delivery. If you cannot understand that people consider that a child (i.e. 1 day before delivery) then you have no hope of swaying your audience to your side of the argument at all!
Also, you didn't really answer the question....
In Italy these services are thankfully not restricted in the same way they are in, say, America - but there are still plenty of life situations (like suffering SA from a family member) where shame, social pressures and threats can cause the regular medical system to be hard to access.
That is a far more reasonable scenario than "I just love popping abortion pills!"
You sure about that? Unfortunately there's a thing called "obiezione di coscienza" (TL;DR: doctors opposing abortion because they're catholics). Feel free to translate this article: https://www.editorialedomani.it/fatti/aborto-obiezione-cosci...
We don't need random websites to hand out prescription drugs to kids.
As mentioned in the 1983 film "WarGames", "We ought to take the men out of the loop".
I assume that this might be the reason why they got blocked--or if not a possibility.
I don't understand why women would need these websites, there are plenty of free resources like local hospitals and doctors who are generally completely fine with abortion.
Women seeking terminations in the first 90 days of pregnancy are protected under law 194.
From what I got, these organizations illegally sent women abortion pills.
At least when I was young and still living in Italy, you could walk into a hospital and they'd give you abortion pills or day after pills for free.
I guess it has to be a hospital/doctor and not a random website?
Not sure.
Understood, but the solution cannot be "allow prescription drugs to be sold online".
If access is not easy, there needs to be a different solution.
Much better than--let's say--getting an MRI.
Looks like this thread has gotten the attention of weird activists that want to find injustice everywhere and jump to conclusion--as long as the conclusion is women oppressed and censored.
Indeed, access must be made easy. Abortion, through a pill or otherwise, should be accessible anywhere, freely, and any medical record should be kept absolutely secret, including from the family, especially if she’s underage.
I don’t think that’s the direction they’re headed though. I’m pretty sure in fact the whole point of allowing stuff like objection of conscience is to make abortion less accessible.
That is my point. If access is not easy, selling prescription drugs to anonymous buyers is not the solution - access must be made easy.
> I’m pretty sure in fact the whole point of allowing stuff like objection of conscience is to make abortion less accessible.
I don't think so. No one, whether a doctor or not, should be forced by the state to end the life of any being. That choice must be totally theirs to make, not the states.
I do not trust any state, government or ruler with the power to compel speech or action.
I feel you. But that right not to kill, conflicts with the autonomy of women. Which is more important?
> I do not trust any state, government or ruler with the power to compel speech or action.
France, and many other countries, makes it a crime (misdemeanour I think?) not to help people. If I see someone about to die, and I could prevent that, and I don’t, then I could go to jail.
This is textbook compelled action, and I fully condone it. If you don’t help someone from immediate danger you’re trash, and you should pay the consequences.
The right to not kill, obviously. What kind of question is this? You want to judge someone for not being (in their minds) a murderer instead of a controller-of-other-people?
> This is textbook compelled action, and I fully condone it. If you don’t help someone from immediate danger you’re trash, and you should pay the consequences.
Sure, but we aren't talking about immediate danger. All those countries you list don't compel you to help someone who is in no immediate danger.
The only way is to make access easy. If you make it hard, then demand for black market drugs will drive supply. Which in turn would drive a repressive machine. Sites blocked, people convicted and so on.
I don't know why anti-abortion activists are unable to understand it. The only working hypothesis they are actively resist any understanding. A dogmatic worldview can lead to such behavior.
The pro-lifers don't have a monopoly on stupid people - see above where a pro-choicer is arguing that abortion 1 day before delivery should be legal.
So, you think the government should force doctors to perform abortions, like putting them in jail if they don't want to do it?
[EDIT: I see GP did reply to parent, and he apparently was making that asinine argument :-/ Oh well, at least I interpreted original GP comment charitably]
I agree, they should!
But what do you do if your society just does not have enough people (nevermind doctors) who share the beliefs of pro-choicers?
At the point where you cannot find enough people to carry out an order for one side of an issue, it's a signal that the society itself has already taken a stand on the issue.
You see, they block, then they notice that blocks do not work, they try harder. And still harder, till the situation comes to impasse, when to try harder means to shut off the Internet. It stops there, everyone is using some kind of DPI resistant VPN, paying more for internet access, and ISP spending more to block what politicians deem worthy of blocks. A pure waste of money. Though datacenters are happy, because they host a ton of VPNs.
So, these websites were being blocked because they were engaged in illegal activity.
Maybe those blocking the sites are not acting on behalf of law enforcement but rather their own ideas of legality and morality.
I don't know why people are being so (deliberatively?) reductive ITT.
If the mother was raped and knows for sure she will not bring up her rapist's kid ... or if there is a possibility that letting the baby be born will kill the mother, MY belief is to follow the mother's wishes.
It's her body and her life.
Not all of us I would bet. One can believe the fetus is a human life, and still want to allow the mother ending it. Sure it’s rough, but this is a classic case of conflicting interest. Pretending the fetus isn’t human yet is just one of several ways to side with the mother’s decision. Malformations or danger to the mother’s life are two others. And then there’s the more radical position that as long as the fetus hasn’t left the womb, the mother’s autonomy is still more important than its life.
This last one is less a belief, (one week before birth the baby is clearly viable), than it is a value system. Though I’d be curious to see the statistics on countries that allow abortion up to birth itself. If it turns out practically no one aborts after 4 months or whatever, that particular point would be moot.
Upthread, a response to me indicated very clearly that, even at 1 day before delivery, it should be the mother's choice.
There's a lot of nuance here, with clearly many people stuck in denial: this is not a binary question. There's a spectrum, all the way from 1 day after conception to 1 day before delivery.
The pro-choicers are pretending that all the pro-lifers want to outlaw the morning after pill. The pro-choicers are also not doing themselves any favours by actually, on this story alone, positioning themselves as supporting 1-day-before-delivery abortions.
Everyone has a line they'll draw. Not everyone's line is in the same place.
And you think the opposing arguments are?
• Survival rates begin to appear (still low) around 22 weeks (roughly 5–35% depending on the study, active treatment, and hospital, with high rates of complications). https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/154/4/e20240...
And please stop that rape red herring. The overwhelming majority of abortions are carried out as contraceptive methods.
[1]https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...
To have the legally available and free abortion that is offered within the first 90 days of their rape?
I say this as someone that is 100% pro-abortion. If a woman wants to not have a baby, it's her body, and her right to decide. The discussion ends there.
Life is hard in the best of times. It must suck to be brought into a world where your mother doesn't even fucking want you around.
Moreover, it's probably preferable that people that make poor decisions regarding pregnancy opt themselves out of the gene pool.
The weird thing about Great Replacement bullshit, is how it manages to mix superiority complex with inferiority complex. Like viewing oneself as less attractive than the "inferior" brother accros the street, or believing in the superiority of one’s culture, and in natural selection, and be afraid of being overrun by an "inferior" one…
I think it is like anorexia. Someone who has no control over their own lives tries to control the few things they can. An anorexic controls their food, but a married man controls his wife and kids. It makes even the weakest person feel strong to have someone to boss around.
You ignore that so many leading anti-abortion activists are women. I think for example of Joanna Howe, [0] who is arguably the most prominent activist against abortion rights in contemporary Australia-and far from some “crotchety old man”, she is a 43 year old law professor.
Access to reproduction is one of the most basic resources a society has available. It is common for the old men to control the young men by being the ones to decide who gets access to women. "Work for us loyally, and we'll allow you to get married"
Society became much more complex than a tribal village where the elders decide everything, and so have the levels of indirection in how control of reproduction is wielded. The situation is also quite a bit more complicated now that populations are able to grow so far above the local carrying capacity of the land. Yet we can still trace a line back to when it was necessary for a community to collectively maintain the sustainability of their population by deciding how many children could be supported at any one time.
Drafts? They typically only targeted men, with a large possibility of maiming or death as the result.
The topic is not access to reproduction. Nobody is controlling access to pregnancy.
> the ones to decide who gets access to women.
Nor is access to women.
Such as Giorgia Meloni?
I believe there’s something very wrong with your moral compass, pal.
And in the US [1,2]:
2016 election: Approximately 39% to 42% of female voters cast their ballots for Trump.
2020 election: Approximately 44% of female voters cast their ballots for Trump.
2024 election: Approximately 46% of female voters cast their ballots for Trump
Like it or not -- and make no mistake, I don't like it -- many women want this.
----------
1: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voting-patte...
2: https://www.cfr.org/articles/women-voters-pivotal-role-elect...
Mailing out prescription drugs without a prescription.
Catholics are "pro birth" in general, but it really doesn't have much in scripture to support it; there is of course the "Quiverfull" movement which aims for each birth to be "an arrow in the quiver of God's army"
So for all of that, it's clearly a religious viewpoint and that raises serious 1A questions.
A question I've never seen addressed by those who hew to this belief system:
Apparently roughly 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage, which is (using the belief system above), God is performing an abortion. How does that reconcile with that stance.
My personal take is simple: "every baby should be a wanted baby"
The politics of it started half a century ago, and the politicizing of abortion was very much intentional:
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/04/1096154028/the-movement-again...
It's important to have discussions based on logic and facts, rather than emotion. It will be interesting to see how that plays out here.