ITALY: A proposal to make women pay for abortion if they resort to it more than once has divided Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government.
More than 25 years after Italy legalised abortion, a senator from Berlusconi's Forza Italia party said at the weekend that he would propose a law to make women pay half price for a second abortion and full price for any subsequent abortions.
"It is unacceptable that so many children should die in their mother's womb," said Mr Antonio Gentile.
Currently, an abortion in the first 90 days of a pregnancy is free under Italy's public health system, as is intervention in the case of a health emergency even after 90 days.
According to the latest data, there were 130,000 abortions in 2002, down from a peak of 235,000 in 1982. Health Minister Mr Girolamo Sirchia indicated he might consider the proposal, saying the 1978 abortion law needed to be revisited to "evaluate the positive and negative aspects".
"I don't know the details of the proposal but I appreciate the motives that inspired it; that is, the need to avoid abortion being thought of as a method of contraception," he said in a television interview on Sunday.
The comments angered women's rights groups and opposition politicians but also ruffled feathers in the government.
Critics say the so-called Law 194 not only guarantees women the right to choose but also protects their privacy, so that no one can keep track of who has abortions or how many.
"This charge idea seems absolutely preposterous to me, it's shocking," said Equal Opportunities Minister Ms Stefania Prestigiacomo, also of Forza Italia, adding that she thought it was just a result of the political summer doldrums. "But if they decide to follow this through, they will have us to contend with," she told the Corriere della Sera daily.
Tiziana Maiolo, responsible for civil rights in Forza Italia, told the Ansa news agency: "Abortion is not a picnic and no woman is going to use it as a contraceptive."
Expectations that the government could try to impose new controls on abortion were raised this year when parliament approved a controversial fertility law that refers to "the rights of the embryo".
While it does not directly address the issue of abortion, critics said it paved the way for a review of Law 194 by establishing a legal jurisdiction for the unborn.