Birth control pill arrives in Italy. Vatican menaces the excommunication

[DAVIDE]

Italy okays abortion pill

Vatican says users and doctors will be excommunicated


(ANSA) - Rome, July 31 - Italy's pharmaceutical agency AIFA has approved the so-called abortion pill despite fierce opposition from the Vatican and conservative politicians.

AIFA rules that the RU486 pill - not to be confused with the morning after pill that has been in use in Italy since 2000 - can be taken by women up until the 49th day of pregnancy under medical supervision in hospital, offering an alternative to surgical abortion.

Ahead of the decision on Thursday evening, the Vatican warned that women who take the pill and doctors who prescribe it would be automatically excommunicated.

Pontifical Academy of Life President Emeritus Msgr Giulio Sgreccia said the pill ''isn't a drug but a lethal poison'' that also threatens the lives of the women, pointing to 29 cases worldwide in which the drug has been linked to deaths.

Msgr Screccia said that since taking the pill was the same as having a surgical abortion, it constituted a ''crime and a sin in a moral and juridical sense'' that led to automatic excommunication from the Catholic Church.

The government said it would assess the agency's decision.

Welfare Undersecretary Eugenia Roccella expressed concern about the safety risks for women taking the pill and called on AIFA to clarify the situation. Roccella said she was concerned the green light for the pill could lead to ''legalised clandestinity'' with women aborting at home since the exact moment of the abortion after taking the bill cannot be predicted.

Luca Volonte' of the Catholic centrist UDC party said the move signalled the beginning of a ''dance of death with pharmaceutical multinationals'', adding that making the pill available ''as if it were aspirin'' violated Italy's strict abortion laws.

But AIFA's decision was hailed by many women and doctors.

''Finally! It's above all a victory for Italian women, who from today have more choice,'' said Silvio Viale, a gynecologist and member of the Radical Party.

Silvana Mura of the opposition Italy of Values party hailed AIFA's decision as offering women a ''much less invasive'' means of terminating a pregnancy than the surgical method.

Margherita Boniver of Premier Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party called for an end to polemics, underlining that the pill was not going to be sold over the counter but would be administered in hospital.

ABORTION RATE DROPPING.

RU486, or mifepristone, was first introduced in France in 1988 and is now used in most European countries including Greece, Spain, Belgium and the United Kingdom.

In Italy the pill will still have to be administered within the terms of the Italian abortion law, which came into effect in 1978 and allows abortions until the 90th day of pregnancy.

After this point, terminations may be carried out only if the mother's health is at risk or the foetus is deformed.

The rate of abortions in Italy has been falling over recent years and is one of the lowest in the West.

According to health ministry figures released on Wednesday, there were 121,406 abortions in 2008, a drop of 4.1% on 2007, and a decrease of 48.3% on 1982 when the highest number of cases, 234,801, was recorded.

An estimated 15,000 illegal abortions are also carried out each year.

Pro-choice activists have complained that a growing number of pro-life medical practitioners is making it tougher for women to obtain abortions.

Under Italian law, doctors can refuse to perform an abortion if it runs counter to their principles.

Recent health ministry figures suggest that 70% of all Italian gynaecologists are now 'conscientious objectors' compared to 58.7% in 2003 while 50.4% of anaesthetists are opposed to abortion, compared to 45.7% in 2003.


http://www.ansa.it/site/notizie/awnp...131210826.html

[Gaidin]

I'd like to say I'm shocked by that statement but that'd be a lie.

[Tankbuster]

If it's only up 'till the 49th day of pregnancy, then this is quite good news for Italian women.

I do have my doubts about how healthy this kind of thing is. A morning-after-pill is already a very strong and unhealty chemical cocktail, so I can only imagine what kind of big guns you'll need for a 48-day embryo.

EDIT: And of course, the Church needs to grow up, but that goes beyond saying.

[DAVIDE]

If it's only up 'till the 49th day of pregnancy, then this is quite good news for Italian women.

I do have my doubts about how healthy this kind of thing is. A morning-after-pill is already a very strong and unhealty chemical cocktail, so I can only imagine what kind of big guns you'll need for a 48-day embryo.

EDIT: And of course, the Church needs to grow up, but that goes beyond saying.

"Suppression of an embryo is de facto the suppression of human life, which has dignity and value from conception to the end," Archibishop Fisichella told Corriere della Sera

[Tankbuster]

"Suppression of an embryo is de facto the suppression of human life, which has dignity and value from conception to the end," Archibishop Fisichella told Corriere della Sera

Yep, these guys this counts as human life:



I respectfully disagree.

[Phier]

Yep, these guys this counts as human life:



I respectfully disagree.

49th day.

Anyways why the hell SHOULDN'T they excommunicate? In the eyes of the Catholic Church this is murder, but they should change because your sensibilities is that its not?

These are the rules of the religion, its not a difficult thing to follow, DON'T ABORT YOUR CHILDREN. Maybe it makes your life harder but who said life had to be made the easiest? Certainly not religions.

They would be hypocrites to do anything else.

[Tankbuster]

Anyways why the hell SHOULDN'T they excommunicate? In the eyes of the Catholic Church this is murder, but they should change because your sensibilities is that its not?

These are the rules of the religion, its not a difficult thing to follow, DON'T ABORT YOUR CHILDREN. Maybe it makes your life harder but who said life had to be made the easiest? Certainly not religions.

They would be hypocrites to do anything else.

I don't know if you're talking to me directly, but anyway:

I didn't expect them to support the notion, of course. The Vatican believes in the notion of a soul, so indeed, everything beyond a zygote is a human being for them.

My statement that they needed to grow up was in respect to the excommunication. Threatening believers with that is getting so old: this ain't the 19th century. If they weren't hypocrites, they would say that God wouldn't like it and that he'll punish you for it some day. But of course, that wouldn't give them power in this life.

[MaximiIian]

but they should change because your sensibilities is that its not?

Yup.

These are the rules of the religion, its not a difficult thing to follow, DON'T ABORT YOUR CHILDREN.

They're trying not to. Hence the birth control pills.
It'd lessen, by a large margin, the amount of abortion procedures performed...which is what you folks are aiming for.

[Yosemite]

remember everyone, this is just a cell

[DAVIDE]

Yep, these guys this counts as human life:



I respectfully disagree.

everybody disagrees with Vatican. Just a bunch of corrupted yoyos

49th day.

Anyways why the hell SHOULDN'T they excommunicate? In the eyes of the Catholic Church this is murder, but they should change because your sensibilities is that its not?

Roman Church's full of contradictions, as when Bishop Lombardi said "the obsession of modern technology, takes away the time for prey damaging the soul"... but at contrary of what Roman Church says, Vatican makes a massive use of propaganda thru internet, mass medias and Radio Vaticana (they opened even a channel on youtube LOL)

[Visna]

48 days? Dang, that's some serious cocktail to be made into a pill.
As for being excommunicated, who cares? Except devout Catholics of course, and they wouldn't/shouldn't do this stuff in the first place.

[Phier]

[QUOTE=davide.cool;5679154Roman Church's full of contradictions, as when Bishop Lombardi said "the obsession of modern technology, takes away the time for prey damaging the soul"... but at contrary of what Roman Church says, Vatican makes a massive use of propaganda thru internet, mass medias and Radio Vaticana (they opened even a channel on youtube LOL)[/QUOTE]

What are you talking about?

You like abortions, congrats, I myself personally don't care either way, but making fun of the Catholic Church for being Catholic is rather pointless.

As for the obsession with modern technology quote, so what? There is one thing the Catholics have not ever been is 'anti-technology'. The key word you are missing is 'obsession', they didn't say cellphones are the work of the devil.

[boofhead]

I can only really say that the non-Roman Catholics probably wouldn't care, and the Roman Catholics shouldn't be doing such a thing anyway.

[Watchman]

Vatican threatens excommunication. Noone cares.

...they definitely need to come up with a new way to express their butthurt.

[Gaidin]

Would RCs even consider it in the first place? Forget shouldn't for the time being.

I'm not that worried about the patients. It's the doctors part that has me rolling my eyes. As doctors they're there to advise the patient and carry out the solution the patient wishes. What happens when a non-RC wants a birth control pill and her doctor is RC. It's a sick and inappropriate threat leading to a big mess.

[Gaidin]

You get some freaky cool looking stuff when you take cellular things and zoom in.

[Avendiel]

Hah, well according to a few different sources that come up on google Catholics are anywhere from 88-97% of Italy's population (though it doesn't say how devout ), so...

[DAVIDE]

Hah, well according to a few different sources that come up on google Catholics are anywhere from 88-97% of Italy's population (though it doesn't say how devout ), so...

Italy's not a Catholic country. Anyway

87% of Italians, claims to be Catholic,
37% of Italians, practice the Catholicism
68% of Italians agrees with divorce law,
68% of Italians, agrees on PACS (coexistens between two gay, who wanna live toghether)
83% of Italians, agrees with abortion, in case of mother in life danger
79% of Italians, agrees with abortion in case of fetus illness or mulfunctions
65% of Italians, agrees with abortion in case of rape


etc. etc... it's was a 2006 poll made by corriere della sera
http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/C...attolici.shtml

anyway i dont believe to this poll. Vatican has hands everywhere. Happy to be an atheist.. sometimes i feel pagan

[Avendiel]

Well, that does give a more detailed picture.

[Fiyenyaa]

Unbelievable that this hasn't already happened.