San Marino has decriminalized abortion
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On Wednesday evening, the parliament of San Marino approved a law to decriminalize abortion: it was one of the very few states in Europe where the voluntary termination of pregnancy was still a crime and all attempts to decriminalize it had still failed (the other European states where abortion is illegal or in any case severely restricted are Vatican City, MaltaAndorra, Liechtenstein and Poland).
The law came after a referendum which had taken place in September and which had been wanted last and was based on feminist movements, such as the Union of San Marino Women. The referendum was held after 18 years of attempts to decriminalize the voluntary termination of pregnancy: with a large majority (77.3 percent) and a turnout of 41 percent, the inhabitants of San Marino had expressed a favorable vote to decriminalization, thus forcing the parliament to modify the penal code and regulate it with a law.
Not only that: the referendum question was of a proactive or guiding nature, that is to say that its objective was guiding principles and criteria that parliament should adhere to in order to formulate a law that would regulate abortion.
The law was approved with 32 votes in favor, 7 against and 10 abstentions and provides precisely this: it will now be possible to abort “without the obligation to provide any reason” within the twelfth week of gestation. The pregnancy can be terminated even afterwards, in case of danger to life or serious health risk of the woman, anomalies of the fetus, rape or incest.
Before the approval of this law, in San Marino articles 153 and 154 of the penal code provided for a prison from six months to three years for the woman who aborted, and sentences of up to six years for those who helped her or physically carried out the abortion.
The law provides for the establishment of consultants in which minors can access emergency contraception without parental authorization or prescription, the inclusion of sex education programs in schools, the prohibition of voluntary termination of pregnancy in free profession for personnel who choose conscientious objection, the prosecution of professionals who provide false information in order to dissuade the woman from requesting the termination of pregnancy.
The law also requires the protection of the “dignity of women from any moral judgment or psychological pressure in relation to the personal choice or intentionality of the same to have recourse to the procedures or interventions provided for” by the law.
The final text will be available shortly. Karen Pruccoli, president of the Union of San Marino Women, explains to To send than respect everyonelatest version releasedthe one approved last July 27 by the Commission which, among other things, deals with health, minimal but important changes have been made: “For example, the statement that in Article 1 affirmed the protection of human life has been removed” from its inception ”as well as the one that defined the use of termination of pregnancy as a choice to be considered extreme relationship: two statements: in contrast with the protection of women’s freedom of self-determination ».
The law also provides for measures to limit the effects of any objections on the woman who chooses to have an abortion, with an obligation for the Institute for Social Security, the one that guarantees recourse to voluntary interruption of pregnancy, to “activate specific contracts to agreement with non-objecting professionals “in case of impossibility to resort to abortion in a facility where it is foreseen.
In concrete terms, it will be possible to take advantage of the law from its entry into force, scheduled for the fifth day following that of its publication.
– Read also: The limits of the law 194 on abortion