{"id":26148,"date":"2020-08-18T18:54:22","date_gmt":"2020-08-18T16:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/?p=26148"},"modified":"2020-08-18T19:00:20","modified_gmt":"2020-08-18T17:00:20","slug":"revised-chemical-abortion-guidelines-in-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/revised-chemical-abortion-guidelines-in-italy.html","title":{"rendered":"Revised chemical abortion guidelines in Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"

On August 12, 2020, the Italian Ministry of Health issued revised \u201cGuidelines for the Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy Using Mifepristone and Prostaglandin.\u201d\u00a0 <\/em>Their reach is limited geographically but the issues they reflect are global.<\/p>\n

To begin, these revised Ministry of Health Guidelines are not themselves likely to change anyone\u2019s already-existing basic positions with respect to one of the most painfully heartrending of bioethical debates, but we still need to study how the Guidelines can affect the societal commitment to welcoming and nurturing life that the Pontifical Academy for Life works to strengthen.<\/p>\n

The Guidelines introduce regulatory modifications to the implementation of the Italian law that permits abortion under certain circumstances, Law Number 194 of May 22, 1978.\u00a0 Thus, that law has to provide the framework for our discussion, and due consideration of its provisions can help to clarify the meaning, and the risks, of the revised Guidelines.<\/p>\n

Law 194 begins with the binding affirmation that the State, by guaranteeing the right to maturely considered and responsible procreation, \u201crecognizes the social value of motherhood and exercises protective concern for human life from its beginning.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 It is within this framework that the same first Article of the law also provides that abortion may not be used as a \u201cmethod of birth control.\u201d\u00a0 Then, Article 2 of the law, speaking of the role of [government] family counselors, entrusts to them a much broader role than that of mechanically providing information leading to a choice that the State<\/em> simply notes and of which it oversees the \u201csafe and effective\u201d implementation.\u00a0 Under the law, it is the duty of family counselors to assist in overcoming the causes that could lead women to choose abortion, and the information they furnish about rights<\/em> and services<\/em> is to have that purpose as well.<\/p>\n

That is why, before evaluating what is new in the Guidelines, it is important to emphasize once again that society has largely ignored those legal requirements, which could have been, but still could be, at least a partial basis for seeking, nourishing, and sharing a civilization <\/em>that affirms life.\u00a0 <\/em>To recoup, we need to talk seriously about a commitment to give women (and couples), really, every possible support to prevent abortion by overcoming those difficulties, even economic ones, that can make abortion a \u201cfate\u201d that is not really \u201cchosen\u201d\u2014the result of negative circumstances that render the thought of having a child difficult or even unbearable and that, in some ways, have pushed Italy, with other countries and even more than others, toward that demographic winter whose consequences we are beginning to see.<\/p>\n

Lack of effective action on the part of family counselors reflects those same circumstances, which in reality tend to burden women (particularly women without husbands) with the profound and life-long consequences of a decision about bringing new life into the world.<\/p>\n

This is the context within which to consider the Guideline revisions just issued.\u00a0 The first deals with removing the requirement that the full protocol of chemical abortions be performed on an inpatient basis (but in reality that requirement has been often by-passed).\u00a0 Now, the drugs can be administered or furnished to an outpatient, followed by the expulsion of the dead embryo from the mother\u2019s womb after she has returned home.\u00a0 If the mother\u2019s concomitant physical pain becomes too intense or she experiences complications, particularly excessive bleeding, a dedicated emergency healthcare facility is to be available.\u00a0 The second change extends the time within which a chemical abortion may be performed\u2014up to nine completed weeks of gestational age (63 days) instead of the earlier seven\u2014but it also calls for close and continuous monitoring in consideration of the possible adverse effects resulting from such extension.<\/p>\n

As a first conclusion, the development that these changes represent\u2014leaving aside the obviously fundamental considerations of clinical effectiveness and safety\u2014seems to further transfer to the strictly private sphere an action that has significant emotional, social, and moral relevance.\u00a0 To the opposite, it is crucial that we provide for a broader and more complete conversation about the intense emotive processes that accompany pregnancy, especially in its initial phases.\u00a0 The particular delicacy of pregnancy is a result of the transformation that becoming a mother, becoming parents, brings about.\u00a0 The surprising appearance of another person calls for a consideration of the most personal aspects of life\u2014the body, space, time, plans.\u00a0 In that light, the inconsistency in the revised Guidelines is \u201cclear.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Allowing an abortion, with all the problems it creates, to take place, sadly once committed to, at a significantly later date and within the loneliness of four walls means distancing a woman even further from the web of social relations and from the world of shared responsibility that can help her heal from so traumatic an experience\u2014precisely the web and world that Law 194 attempted to salvage.\u00a0 It might be easy to argue\u2014and with some good reasons\u2014that the hospital environment is not necessarily the best place to provide the intended accompaniment and support or that in any event they come into play only during the lead-up <\/em>to a decision to terminate a pregnancy; but the very weakness of these arguments themselves shows that we can\u2019t give up searching for effective ways and tools to bring about a shared commitment to welcome, celebrate, and honor God\u2019s gift of life. \u00a0Our accompaniment and our support for conceived new lives, and for families, are still the way we show we are a society that is aware and engaged, and that knows how to build its future with wisdom and clarity of vision.<\/p>\n

Vatican City, August 14, 2020<\/em><\/p>\n

ITALIAN VERSION<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On August 12, 2020, the Italian Ministry of Health issued revised \u201cGuidelines for the Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy Using Mifepristone and Prostaglandin.\u201d\u00a0 Their reach is limited geographically but the issues they reflect are global. To begin, these revised Ministry of Health Guidelines are not themselves likely to change anyone\u2019s already-existing basic positions with respect to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26143,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english","category-interventi","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/ru-e1597769638866.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26148"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26150,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26148\/revisions\/26150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vincenzopaglia.it\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}