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UN rights panel urges Italy to ensure access to safe abortions

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has urged Italy to ensure women have access to free and safe abortion services amid concerns over the high number of doctors who refuse to provide terminations.

Published: 29 March 2017 10:11 CEST
UN rights panel urges Italy to ensure access to safe abortions
Protesters during a demonstration in Italy in 2008 to protect the country's abortion law. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

The committee on Tuesday said it was “concerned for the difficulty of access to legal abortions” and therefore “the significant number of back-street abortions”.

The panel urged the government to “adopt necessary measures to guarantee the free and timely access to legal abortion services”.

Some 70 percent of doctors in Italy refuse to terminate pregnancies, saying it goes against their Christian conscience.

The UN panel’s call comes a month after a Rome hospital caused an outcry after hiring two specialist abortion doctors due to the high number of conscientious objectors, 78 percent of which are in the Lazio region.

Lazio’s regional governor, Nicola Zingaretti, had planned for the two doctors to be hired at Rome’s San Camillio hospital – one of the largest in the capital – where they would be tasked specifically with carrying out abortions.

Meanwhile, women who have illegal abortions face fines of between €5,000 and €10,000, which were introduced last year.

Read more: Anger as Italy fines women up to €10k for secret abortions

The new fines replaced a 'symbolic' fine of €51, which had been given to women who obtained an illegal abortion, and was aimed at encouraging them to denounce doctors who performed it as well as encourage them to use the state healthcare system in case any complications arose.

Abortion has been legal in Italy since 1978. Women are entitled to terminate a pregnancy within the first three months. After 90 days, abortions are only allowed if the foetus is badly harmed or the mother's life is at risk.
 

UN

‘The war must end now’: UN Sec-Gen meets Swedish PM in Stockholm

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres met Sweden's Prime Minister in Stockholm on Wednesday, ahead of the conference marking the 50th anniversary of the city's historic environment summit .

Published: 1 June 2022 15:46 CEST
'The war must end now': UN Sec-Gen meets Swedish PM in Stockholm

After a bilateral meeting with Magdalena Andersson on the security situation in Europe, Guterres warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could lead to a global food crisis that would hurt some of the world’s most vulnerable people. 

“It is causing immense suffering, destruction and devastation of the country. But it also inflames a three-dimensional global crisis in food, energy and finance that is pummelling the most vulnerable people, countries and economies,” the Portuguese diplomat told a joint press conference with Andersson. 

He stressed the need for “quick and decisive action to ensure a steady flow of food and energy,” including “lifting export restrictions, allocating surpluses and reserves to vulnerable populations and addressing food price increases to calm market volatility.”

Between the two, Russia and Ukraine produce around 30 percent of the global wheat supply.

Guterres was in Stockholm to take part in the Stockholm 50+ conference, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. 

The conference, which was held on the suggestion of the Swedish government in 1972 was the first UN meeting to discuss human impacts on the global environment, and led to the establishment of the UN Environment Program (UNEP). 

At the joint press conference, Andersson said that discussions continued between Sweden and Turkey over the country’s continuing opposition to Sweden’s application to join the Nato security alliance. 

“We have held discussions with Turkey and I’m looking forward to continuing the constructive meetings with Turkey in the near future,” she said, while refusing to go into detail on Turkey’s demands. 

“We are going to take the demands which have been made of Sweden directly with them, and the same goes for any misunderstandings which have arisen,” she said. 

At the press conference, Guterres condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine as “a violation of its territorial integrity and a violation of the UN Charter”.

“The war must end now,” he said. 

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