Abortion battle is back after decades

Rome: The woman was still woozy from anaesthesia when Italian police interrogated her shortly after she had had an abortion. Then they confiscated the foetus.

In Spain, police have swept into clinics, hauled away cartons of medical records and questioned dozens of women who had terminated their pregnancies, sometimes showing up at their homes, to their great morification.

In Italy and Spain, two of Europe's most Catholic countries, opponents of abortion are finding new ways to challenge laws and use the issue to influence national elections, a generation after most citizens thought the issue was resolved.

Intense debate

Spurred on by the church, anti-abortion activists have staged demonstrations and circulated petitions, gathering thousands of names. On the other side of the debate, thousands of women have turned out in demonstrations to demand that laws allowing the termination of pregnancy be protected.

When it came to power four years ago, Spain's Socialist government made liberal social reform a hallmark of its administration and promised legislation to expand access to abortion.

But by the time it ran for re-election in March, it had dropped abortion from its platform as Spanish bishops all but directed citizens to vote against candidates who didn't oppose it.

The vast majority of abortions in Spain have been performed after a doctor certifies grave risk to the woman's physical or psychological health, and critics maintain the provision is abused. Police interrogating women who've had abortions often ask if the women ever really saw a psychiatrist or doctor.

Local governments of Madrid and Barcelona, which are more conservative than the national administration, launched, or at least permitted, a crackdown on clinics in a bid to find out whether illegal late-term abortions were being performed.

"It is harassment, a political persecution," said Empar Pineda, spokeswoman for one of the targets, Madrid's Isadora clinic.

Contrary to popular perception, nearly 90 per cent of abortions in Spain are performed in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, with fewer than two per cent occurring after 21 weeks, Pineda said.

In Italian elections tomorrow, abortion has emerged unexpectedly as a major issue. One particularly vocal political figure, a conservative newspaper editor and former government minister, is running for Parliament on a single point: ending abortion.

The influence of the church in Italy, home to the Vatican and the pope, is especially strong.

Election issue

Even among leftist parties, there is discord over strong abortion-rights legislation - exacerbated when abortion was pushed to the centre of election-season debate by an incident in Naples in February.

Berlusconi has said he personally does not believe abortion should be part of an election debate, but has helped fuel the debate by calling for an international "moratorium" on abortion.

He echoed, in part, his old friend Giuliano Ferrara, a conservative journalist who launched his own campaign for election on the platform of "Abortion: No Thanks."

Ferrara says abortion should be eradicated by creating conditions that encourage women to have babies and make it impossible to end pregnancies.

- Los Angeles Times - Washington Post News Service

Background

The legal status

Thirty years ago, Italy legalised abortion-on-demand for pregnancies as far along as 12 weeks, and up to 24 weeks when there are abnormalities in the foetus or the health of the woman is in danger.

Spain legalised abortion in 1985; women may abort up to 12 weeks in case of rape, 22 weeks if the foetus is malformed and at any time if a doctor certifies grave risk to the woman's physical or psychological health.