Aborting during Coronavirus: new solutions needed
The national health emergency due to the numerous infections from Coronavirus, has reduced the regular medical procedures to the bone.
Among these are abortions, which in Italy are possible almost exclusively through outpatient surgery. In the areas most affected by Covid-19 with closed clinics and overcrowded hospitals these days it is practically impossible to have an abortion.
In many countries it is already possible to pharmacologically abort even with remote assistance, while in still others there is a fight for the right to abort:
RU486: the abortion pill in Italy
Having obtained the authorization, in 2009 also in Italy it became possible to have a pharmacologically abortion without intervening with surgery. The patient takes an abortion pill, a medicine based on mifepristone that counteracts progesterone and makes it impossible to carry on with the pregnancy.
A less expensive and invasive method that significantly changes the way of seeing abortion.
In our country, some areas have nearly 90% of conscientious objecting doctors and it is often necessary to travel hundreds of kilometers to reach a facility that practices abortion.
When it comes to drug abortion, the figures get even smaller. Incredible if you think of a right that should be available in any hospital in the national territory.
If in other countries the maximum limit for aborting by taking RU486 is 9 weeks, in Italy it is 7 weeks, in short: aborting in Italy is simultaneously a hunt for the structure and a race against time without counting personal motivations and psychological repercussions. of those who decide to terminate the pregnancy.
See also
What happens during the quarantine
In many areas of Italy which include regions and cities with the highest number of infections, voluntary interruptions of pregnancy are significantly reduced or even suspended due to overcrowding in hospitals.
With closed clinics, then, it is practically impossible to resort to pharmacological abortion (of which too many women are still not even aware) because through these institutions it is easier to track down doctors and structures that already practice this type of abortion.
According to the WHO (World Health Organization), abortion is one of the emergency procedures, considering the fact that it has a rather short time limit and that it is a right, as enshrined in the law. For this reason, the gynecologists and the associations concerned are clamoring for an end to this unmotivated silence on the subject and to streamline the bureaucratic procedures by promoting drug abortion immediately.
Are we really still talking about it in 2020?
