“This Is a Law About Life, Not a Law about Death”: Conscientious Objection and Its Effects on Italian Doctors

Law 194 legalized abortion in Italy in 1978 but also allowed for conscientious objection. Conscientious objection permits any medical professional who morally disagrees with abortion to opt out of providing them. Italy has a high conscientious objection rate, 64.6% of gynecologists, according to the most recent report. This level of objection makes access to abortion difficult in actuality. This paper seeks to shed light on the experience of non-objecting doctors. This Paper is the result of a study interviewing abortion doctors about their experiences in hospitals. I conducted 18 interviews with non-objecting doctors who worked across seven regions of Italy. These interviews made clear that non-objectors do believe that their objecting colleagues do so because of genuinely held religious or moral beliefs. The interviewees in this study made clear that objection was substantially easier than non-objection; they focused on the emotional and administrative labor required of non-objectors. This study also sheds light on conscientious objection's effects on doctors and patients, particularly patients who experience complications late in their pregnancy. Finally, this paper provides doctors' recommendations on ways to lower the objection level in Italy.