Abortion in Italy: a combination between neo-fascism and neoliberalism

Non Una di Meno (NUDM, "Not One Less") is a transfeminist movement that began in Argentina in 2015, then spread globally, fighting against patriarchy, male violence, and gender-based violence. Active in several Italian cities, NUDM, among other activities, has taken action in defence of family planning clinics: public social and health services dedicated to sexual and reproductive health, born out of the feminist struggles of the seventies and institutionalised by law in 1975. Originally created as social, political and feminist health centres as well as gynaecological hospitals, these clinics have been under growing attack for years, with closures and funding cuts.

The Non Una di Meno Padua Clinic

The Consultoria was symbolically born on 8 March 2024, with the occupation of a former family planning clinic that had been vacant and unused since 2019. The choice of name, which transforms the masculine noun “consultorio” (clinic) into the feminine “consultoria”, is a political act and a reclaiming of these structures as places of collective care and self-determination.

The initiative, led by NUDM Padua, was born from the desire to reclaim a political and feminist space within the city, to create a self-managed sexual health centre, and to mount a defence against gender-based violence and institutional shortcomings, which are both physical (lack of facilities) and informational, especially with regard to abortion.

The Consultoria involved the local community, which took part in its assemblies, sexual health workshops and social events. In its nine months of existence, numerous activities were performed, developed on the basis of the needs expressed by the community. These included speech circles, sexual and emotional education workshops with gynaecologists and healthcare professionals, as well as self-managed feminist self-defence workshops and support and information hubs against gender-based violence, in synergy with the work of Anti-Violence Centres.

One of the most important services provided in the Consultoria – a service that NUDM has been running for years – is the Abortion Desk, through which the volunteers offer information on abortion and accompany those who request it to their medical appointments for an abortion. “These help desks, which received at least two requests for help per week at the Consultoria, constitute the political framework of NUDM’s activity: not to replace public health services, but networking and fighting for a secular and accessible health service, where abortion is a right and not a privilege”, explains Cecilia, an activist for NUDM Padua.

Conscientious objection and lack of data

Abortion in Italy was decriminalised by the Law n°194, in 1978. This was the result of years of parliamentary debate, by which the feminist movement’s desire for self-determination was largely scaled back in order to reach a compromise with the conservative political forces of the time.

This is clear from the title of the law itself: “Rules for the social protection of maternity and on the voluntary termination of pregnancy”, which prioritises the protection of maternity before establishing the circumstances in which abortion is not a crime. As such, in Italy, unlike in other legal traditions, abortion is not conceived as a right of free choice, but as a health measure aimed at protecting human life.

As Cecilia explains, “The Law 194 is in fact an antinomy, since it includes within the legislation itself the instrument to weaken it, namely conscientious objection”. Article 9 guarantees that healthcare personnel, when faced with a woman’s request for an abortion, have the full right to refuse to perform the procedure for ethical and moral reasons. Although the latest report from the Ministry on the implementation status of Law 194 states that “there are no utilisation problems” and that “it is not affected by the right to conscientious objection”, the reality of the situation seems rather different.

In Italy in 2025 the rate of conscientious objectors, including doctors and healthcare personnel, is so high that for many women, especially migrants or those with fewer economic opportunities, having an abortion becomes a bureaucratic and cultural obstacle course. Women wishing to access abortion services are faced with long waiting times and unhelpful information, and often find themselves forced to move between cities and regions in the hope of finding a doctor willing to perform the procedure.

Article 16 of Law 194 establishes that every year, by February, a report on the status of abortion, from the number of conscientious objectors to the total number of procedures performed, must be presented to the Italian Parliament. The most recent data from the Ministry of Health reports that, in 2022, 60.5% of gynaecologists, 37.2% of anaesthetists and 32.1% of non-medical personnel declared themselves to be objectors.

In 2021, the regions with the highest number of objecting gynaecologists were Sicily (85%), Abruzzo (84%) and Puglia (80.6%), while the lowest percentages were recorded in Trento (17.1%) and Valle d’Aosta (25%). In addition to the fact that the Report on the Implementation of Law 194 is chronically overdue—the most recent available report contains data from three years ago—the information provided by the Ministry is often confusing, obsolete and useless. As can be seen in Graph 1, the Ministerial report publishes aggregate data by average region, and not by hospital, making it difficult for a woman to understand which hospital to go to for an abortion.

For many years, journalists Chiara Lalli and Sonia Montegiove from the Luca Coscioni Association have been conducting a periodic survey to address this situation, asking individual regions to publish updated data on abortion that references individual local health authorities and healthcare facilities.

However, many regions have refused to provide this information, have obscured specific data or made it unreadable. The picture that emerges from the “Mai Dati” report, which resulted from this investigation, depicts an even more critical situation than that suggested by the official version provided by the Ministry. According to Mai Dati, in 2022, between 80% and 100% of healthcare personnel in no fewer than 72 Italian hospitals were objectors; 100% of healthcare personnel in four clinics and 20 hospitals were objectors; and all the gynaecologists in 18 hospitals were objectors. In the Molise region access to abortion is especially prohibitive, with only one abortion clinic in the whole region.

In light of this, as Lalli and Montegiovi report in Mai Dati, the institutions perpetrate a double abuse when it comes to abortion. On the one hand, they violate Article 16 of Law 194 by failing to provide annual statistics in the Annual Report on the Implementation of Law 194. And they also contravene the 2016 Freedom of information act, which guarantees the right of access to information held by public administrations, by concealing data on conscientious objection. Access to abortion in Italy is therefore not only hindered by Law 194 itself, which allows conscientious objection, but also by the lack of information and the impossibility of accessing the information that exists.

In addition to the lack of information about where abortion services can be accessed, and the scarcity of locations that offer the service, the Ministry of Health, on its institutional webpage, provides very little practical information about abortion. As Cecilia says, “In Italy, access to abortion is not guaranteed, and part of this is not even knowing how to access it”.

Talking to me about their work in the Consultoria’s Abortion Help Desk, NUDM volunteers emphasise how often people call to get basic information, which seems trivial, but can be difficult to find: “How much will I bleed with RU486? How much pain will I feel? Can I drive the day after? Can I go to work?” In addition to providing answers to these and other questions, the help desks also offer psychological and emotional support in a welcoming and non-judgemental environment, filling a need that is often lacking in the public service.

The judgemental atmosphere that seems to characterise family planning clinics is not only a cultural issue, but has legislative roots that draw on the ambiguities inherent in the law itself.

In fact, the Italian law on abortion not only allows, but also provides for and encourages the presence of pro-life individuals and organisations supporting maternity in family planning clinics. These associations are in charge of “resolving” the motives underlying a woman’s decision to terminate her pregnancy – that is, “economic, social, family or health circumstances” (Law 194, Article 4) – thereby completely excluding the idea that a woman can have an abortion for personal reasons, and subordinating her will to a process of justification from the outset. For this very reason, Law 194 is an antinomy: it decriminalises abortion, but at the same time, in the very locations designated for its practice, it places people responsible for convincing women to do the opposite.

The role of the Meloni government

If Law 194 already limited women’s self-determination, recent regulatory changes have managed to further strengthen the influence of anti-abortion groups in clinics and hospitals. From April 2024, the agreements that sanction the access of “pro-life” organisations to clinics are no longer only financed with regional funds, but also with public and state funds, which draw on the PNRR (National Recovery Plan).

This change came about thanks to an amendment proposed by the ruling Fratelli d’Italia in April 2024 which strengthens the power of anti-abortion associations and “third sector organisations with proven experience in maternity support” to operate in clinics.

The party led by Giorgia Meloni described this measure as a tool to inform women about available welfare measures in order to prevent abortion being chosen for economic or social reasons. These changes were not simply theoretical, but had tangible consequences: they further strengthened the presence of pro-life groups in the territory.

In a “Catholic country” like Italy, Francesca from NUDM Padua explains, “anti-abortion organisations operate as militant groups with a widespread presence, from ecclesiastical settings to Centres for Assistance to Life” (CAV).

These Centres, voluntary Catholic associations where people can access Christian charity for the support of a child, are financed by public money (as in the case of the Piedmont region) and supported by the current government, which thus strengthens the anti-abortion influence in the country.

Guaranteed institutional access for pro-life groups is not limited to greater visibility in clinics, but also translates into an increasingly structured presence within the public health system. “Following the Fratelli d’Italia amendment, there are cities in which anti-abortion organisations have gained semi-institutional access to hospitals, obtaining the management of dedicated spaces”, explains Francesca. The most striking case, according to the activists, is that of the Sant’Anna Hospital in Turin, where a counselling room has been set up where pro-lifers have been given access to an information space for abortion “which in fact provides scientific misinformation”.

As for the city of Padua, since December 2024, the hospitals of Camposampiero and Cittadella have renewed the agreement between the ULSS 6 Euganea regional health authority and the anti-abortion association Movement for Life (CAV), which allows anti-abortionists to volunteer in hospitals and to have notice boards and informational material made available.

Faced with this progressive dismantling of the right to abortion, NUDM’s struggle and resistance also takes form in Obiezione Respinta SoS Aborto ("Objection Denied SoS Abortion"), a project that aims to map conscientious objection in Italy, based on anonymous testimonies organised by facility. Using a QR code, people can access a portal that lists all the public health centres in the area, and describe their experience with the medical staff, reporting the presence of objectors or anti-abortion groups, as well as empathetic and qualified staff.

The crisis in Italian healthcare and ideological attacks

According to a 1996 Law, there should be one family planning clinic for every 20,000 inhabitants in Italy. However, in Padua, a city of 200,000 inhabitants, four clinics have been closed in the last ten years. In the Veneto region the rate of conscientious objection is close to 70%.

These dynamics are part of the general attack on Italian healthcare, due to the simultaneous defunding and downgrading of the National Health Service (SSN), which is losing its universalistic nature due to massive cuts. The Health Report edited by CREA (Centre for Applied Economic Research in Health, 2024) shows that total Italian national per capita health expenditure in 2023 was 37.8% lower than that of the other countries that joined the EU before 1995. The result is that healthcare in Italy is increasingly privatised, with strong regional disparities and access to care becoming increasingly difficult for the most vulnerable sections of the population, including migrants.

In this context, with more than €37 billion taken from public health in the decade between 2010-2019 (GIMBE, 2024) by the ruling class over the last twenty years, regardless of political persuasion, more and more family planning clinics are being merged and closed. In Italy, 300 family planning clinics have been closed in the last 10 years (from 2,430 in 2013 to 2,140 in 2023, according to the National health service statistical yearbooks) and those that remain open are experiencing reductions in opening hours and staff.

The consequence and parallel phenomenon to this has been the depoliticisation of these structures, which are changing from innovative centres with multidisciplinary approaches to physical, mental and collective health, to becoming increasingly basic clinics.

The attack on family planning clinics should first be contextualised within the progressive weakening of Italy’s National Health Service, but it also fits into a broader ideological framework, that of the far right Meloni government.

In addition to the April decree and the funding allocated by the state to the Centres for Life, the force behind the closure of family planning clinics in Italy also involves the vision of women as political subjects as portrayed by the current ruling class.

According to Francesca and Cecilia of NUDM, it is wrong to think that the Meloni government “is just a neo-fascist government, because Meloni has the ability to combine neo-fascism and neoliberalism in a very powerful way”. The woman appointed by the President is not only a mother, “but a woman, mother, worker, who finds her freedom in the freedom of the market”. Although the government, with the Ministry of Equal Opportunities, Family and Birth led by the pro-life minister Roccella, goes on about being pro-birth, which has led to comparisons with historical fascism, “the issue of the birth rate seems to be increasingly part of an anti-immigrant, racial discourse, where obstructing abortion in Italy is closely linked to a political will: that of reproducing the family, and therefore the white homeland”.

The Eviction of the Consultoria

The Consultoria was interrupted on 12 December 2024, when it was evicted nine months after it began its occupation, a period of time that the NUDM activists find ironic, given the theme of gestation.

The Padua Police Headquarters and the Territorial Agency for Residential Housing justified the intervention with the need to free up the space for a co-housing project. However, as the NUDM activists point out, the action was carried out in the most depoliticised way possible: in silence, without warning or possibility of dialogue, simply by changing the locks.

The Consultoria was not created to compensate for the privatisation of a public service, explains Cecilia, but to propose an alternative, grassroots health model that would operate “within and against” the system, while at the same time addressing the loneliness that characterises an increasingly atomised society. Today the NUDM Padua Consultoria is looking for a new home, and is currently negotiating with the local council to find a suitable space.

 🤝 This article is published within the Come Together collaborative project