Tag Archives: Abortion

U.S. Justice Dept. to ask Supreme Court to put Texas abortion law on hold -spokesman

(Reuters) -President Joe Biden’s administration on Friday said it will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to block a restrictive Texas law that imposes a near-total ban on abortion after a federal appeals court reinstated the law.

The U.S. Justice Department will request the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, to reverse the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision to lift a judge’s order blocking the law, while litigation over the dispute continues, a spokesman said.

The Texas measure, which bans abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, took effect on Sept. 1. It makes an exception for a documented medical emergency but not for cases of rape or incest.

The law is unusual in that it gives private citizens the power to enforce it by enabling them to sue anyone who performs or assists a woman in getting an abortion after cardiac activity is detected in the embryo. That feature has helped shield the law from being immediately blocked as it made it more difficult to directly sue the state.

Critics of the law have said this provision lets people act as anti-abortion bounty hunters.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung and Brendan O’Brien; Additional reporting by Sarah Lynch; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

U.S. Supreme Court weighs Kentucky official’s bid to defend abortion law

By Andrew Chung

(Reuters) – In another case stemming from a restrictive abortion law, U.S. Supreme Court justices on Tuesday signaled a willingness to let Kentucky’s Republican attorney general defend his state’s statute – struck down by lower courts – after its Democratic governor dropped the case.

The arguments heard by the nine justices did not involve the legality of the 2018 law, focusing instead on the narrow legal issue of whether Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron can take over the defense of it in a bid to revive the measure.

The dispute highlighted the sometimes messy conflicts that arise when a governor and a state’s top legal officer differ in political views or party, leading to disagreements on whether to defend certain state laws in court.

Both liberal and conservative justices asked questions during the argument that indicated sympathy toward ensuring that Cameron, as attorney general, retains the power to act even after the political party of the governor changes hands.

Republican-backed abortion restrictions enacted by numerous U.S. states in recent years have continued to draw the attention of the nation’s highest judicial body.

Abortion rights advocates have said that Kentucky’s law would effectively ban an abortion method called dilation and evacuation – the most common form performed during the second trimester of a pregnancy – effectively banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

The justices must decide whether Cameron can now try to defend the law after lower courts already ruled that it violated Supreme Court precedents holding that women have a right under the U.S. Constitution to obtain an abortion. Governor Andy Beshear’s administration dropped the case.

Abortion opponents are hopeful that the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, will pare back abortion rights this term. The justices will hear arguments in December over a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a case in which that state is asking the court to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized the procedure nationwide.

EMW Women’s Surgical Center, an abortion clinic in Louisville, challenged Kentucky’s law, which was signed by then-Governor Matt Bevin, a Republican. Bevin subsequently lost his re-election bid to Beshear in 2019.

Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer noted during the argument that Republicans and Democrats often hold different views on abortion, and that after the new Democratic administration dropped the case Cameron stepped in.

“At that point for the first time we have an attorney general who thinks it’s a pretty good statute – he wants to defend it,” Breyer said “… So if there’s no prejudice to anybody – and I can’t see where there is – why can’t he just come in and defend the law?” Breyer asked a lawyer from the American Civil Liberties Union representing the abortion clinic.

The Beshear administration’s health department continued to defend the law in court after he took office. But after the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck it down in 2020, his administration decided not to press the matter further.

Cameron then sought to take over the defense. The 6th Circuit denied that request, saying it was too late for Cameron’s office to step in.

The Kentucky law is one of a growing number passed by Republican legislators at the state level imposing a variety of restrictions on abortion. The justices last month allowed a near-total ban on abortion in Texas to go into effect.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)

Analysis-Judge’s ruling on Texas abortion ban a warning to copycats, for now

By Jan Wolfe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. federal judge’s decision blocking Texas’ near-total abortion ban is a warning to other states considering similar measures, though it too could be overturned by a higher court in the coming weeks.

Texas’ law banning the procedure from six weeks, a point when many women may not even be aware they are pregnant, took effect last month after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a to halt it from taking effect, in a late-night decision that took no stance on the law’s constitutionality.

Rather, the Supreme Court allowed it to stand due to an unusual mechanism that leaves it up to private citizens to enforce the ban through civil lawsuits against anyone who “aids or abets” a woman obtaining an abortion – and provides a $10,000 bounty for those who do.

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman in Austin late Wednesday blasted the law as a “flagrant violation” of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that recognized a constitutional right to abortion.

Pitman, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, said he was particularly troubled by how the law named S.B. 8 outsources enforcement to private citizens, calling this an “unprecedented and aggressive scheme” to limit legal challenges.

That, legal experts said, was a clear warning to at least 12 other states contemplating similar action, including Florida, South Carolina and South Dakota, that there is now a route for the U.S. Department of Justice to challenge the structure of the ban.

“We are still at the early stages, and a lot depends on the court and judge assigned to the case,” said David Noll, a professor at Rutgers Law School. “But this is a first cut at the what the DOJ can do in response to this sort of law.”

Since the law went into effect, the four Whole Woman’s Health abortion clinics across Texas have seen patient visits plummet, some staff quit, and recruitment efforts falter. After the decision it said it was making plans to resume abortions up to 18 weeks “as soon as possible.”

DESIGNED TO AVOID CHALLENGE

By deputizing enforcement to private citizens, the law deliberately tried to insulate Texas from legal challenges filed in the federal court system, Pitman said.

“Rather than subjecting its law to judicial review under the Constitution, the State deliberately circumvented the traditional process,” the judge wrote. “It drafted the law with the intent to preclude review by federal courts that have the obligation to safeguard the very rights the statute likely violates.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican defending the law in court, said in a statement that his office disagreed with Pitman’s decision and was appealing to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The sanctity of human life is, and will always be, a top priority for me,” Paxton said.

At a recent court hearing, Paxton’s office argued the law was not designed to evade judicial review, and that offering incentives for private lawsuits is neither unusual nor unlawful.

For now, Pitman’s ruling is “a warning” to anti-abortion lawmakers who want to mimic the Texas approach to enforcing an abortion ban, said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

Florida Republicans have already introduced a copycat bill with this mechanism, and lawmakers in Georgia, Arizona and West Virginia have said they want to follow Texas’ private enforcement approach.

But Levinson cautioned that Pitman’s ruling could be reversed, either by the Fifth Circuit or eventually the Supreme Court.

“I hope I’m wrong but I just don’t see a long lifespan for Judge Pitman’s ruling,” said Levinson, who called the Fifth Circuit the most conservative of the intermediate federal appeals courts one step below the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, on Dec. 1 hears arguments in a separate case involving a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Mississippi has asked the high court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

John Seago, the legislative director for anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life, said the organization believes Judge Pitman will be reversed on appeal.

“We believe Senate Bill 8 is going to be upheld,” Seago said, adding that a “typical route” for this sort of case is a federal judge in Western Texas ruling in favor of liberal advocates but then getting reversed on appeal.

Florida State Representative Anna Eskamani, a Democrat from Orlando, said Republican lawmakers in her state should take heed from Pitman’s ruling and drop their plans for copying S.B. 8’s approach to enforcement.

“This sends a really strong message to those politicians that this sort of scheme is unlawful,” she said.

(Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Scott Malone and Rosalba O’Brien)

Biden administration urges halt to strict Texas abortion law

By Sarah N. Lynch and Jan Wolfe

(Reuters) -President Joe Biden’s administration on Friday urged a judge to block a near-total ban on abortion imposed by Texas – the strictest such law in the nation – in a key moment in the ferocious legal fight over abortion access in the United States.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 1 allowed the Republican-backed law to take effect even as litigation over its legality continues in lower courts. The U.S. Justice Department eight days later sued in federal court to try to invalidate it.

During a hearing in the Texas capital of Austin, Justice Department lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman to block the law temporarily, saying the state’s Republican legislature and governor enacted it in an open defiance of the Constitution.

“There is no doubt under binding constitutional precedents that a state may not ban abortions at six weeks,” said Brian Netter, the lead Justice Department attorney on the case.

“Texas knew this but, it wanted a 6-week ban anyway. So this state resorted to an unprecedented scheme of vigilante justice.”

The Texas law bans abortions starting at six weeks of pregnancy, a point when many women may not realize they are pregnant. About 85% to 90% of abortions are performed after six weeks. Texas makes no exception for cases of rape and incest.

It also lets ordinary citizens enforce the ban, rewarding them at least $10,000 if they successfully sue anyone who helped provide an abortion after fetal cardiac activity is detected.

Will Thompson, an attorney in the Texas Attorney General’s Office, countered the Justice Department’s arguments, saying there were plenty of opportunities for people in Texas to challenge the law on their own, and claiming the Department’s arguments were filled with “hyperbole and inflammatory rhetoric.”

“This is not some kind of vigilante scheme, as opposing counsel suggests,” said Thompson. “This is a scheme that uses lawful process of justice in Texas.”

Pitman, who was appointed by Democratic former President Barack Obama in 2014, at one point seemed skeptical of Thompson’s arguments, telling him Texas seems to have “gone to great lengths” to make its abortion ban difficult to challenge in court.

The judge said: “My obvious question to you is: If the state is so confident in the constitutionality of the limitations on woman’s access to abortion, then why did it go to such great lengths to create this private cause of action rather than do it directly?”

Thompson responded that laws providing for enforcement are not as unusual as the Justice Department has claimed.

In the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, the Supreme Court recognized a woman’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.

The high court in December is due to hear arguments over the legality of a Mississippi abortion law in a case in which officials from that state are asking the justices to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

The Mississippi and Texas laws are among a series of Republican-backed measures passed by various states restricting abortion.

Since the Texas law went into effect, the four Whole Woman’s Health abortion clinics across the state have reported that patient visits have plummeted and some staff have quit.

In addition to infringing on women’s constitutional rights to seek an abortion, the Justice Department argued that the law also impedes the federal government’s own ability to offer abortion-related services.

In an effort to counter those claims, attorneys for the state on Friday played clips from depositions of various senior U.S. government officials.

In one clip, lawyers interrogated Alix McLearen, a senior official at the Bureau of Prisons who, in response to questions, testified that there were currently no pregnant inmates being held at certain detention facilities in Texas.

In another clip, Laurie Bodenheimer of the Office of Personnel Management was asked whether any insurance carriers had raised concerns about the impact or effect of the Texas law.

“To my knowledge no carrier has raised concerns about SB8,” she said.

The Justice Department’s Netter told the judge that Texas had cherry-picked some of the sound bites in the videos and edited out the portions in which Department attorneys had objected during the depositions.

Netter noted, for instance, that Texas conveniently omitted a portion of McLearen’s testimony in which she said the prisons bureau has pregnant inmates incarcerated currently at FMC Carswell, which he noted is “the only secure medical facility for women” in the entire country.

“It is irreparable injury for there to be a violation of the Supremacy Clause,” Netter said, referring to the Constitutional principle that establishes that federal laws have supremacy over state laws.

More than 600 marches are planned around the United States on Saturday to protest the Texas law.

In Washington, D.C., protesters will march to the U.S. Supreme Court to decry the court’s 5-4 decision in September that denied a request from abortion and women’s health providers to enjoin enforcement of the ban.

(Reporting by Jan Wolfe and Sarah N. Lynch in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham, Alistair Bell and Dan Grebler)

In political crosshairs, U.S. Supreme Court weighs abortion and guns

By Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Just before midnight on Sept. 1, the debate over whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority will dramatically change life in America took on a new ferocity when the justices let a near-total ban on abortion in Texas take effect.

The intense scrutiny of the court will only increase when the justices – six conservatives and three liberals – open their new nine-month term on Monday. They have taken up cases that could enable them to overturn abortion rights established in a landmark ruling 48 years ago and also expand gun rights – two cherished goals of American conservatives.

In addition, there are cases scheduled that could expand religious rights, building on several rulings in recent years.

These contentious cases come at a time when opinion surveys show that public approval of the court is waning even as a commission named by President Joe Biden explores recommending changes such as expanding the number of justices or imposing term limits in place of their lifetime appointments.

Some justices have given speeches rebutting criticism of the court and questions about its legitimacy as a nonpolitical institution. Its junior-most member Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative confirmed by Senate Republicans only days before the 2020 presidential election, said this month the court “is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks.”

“There’s no doubt that the court’s legitimacy is under threat right now,” lawyer Kannon Shanmugam, who frequently argues cases at the court, said at an event organized by the conservative Federalist Society. “The level of rhetoric and criticism of the court is higher than I can certainly remember at any point in my career.”

The court’s late-night 5-4 decision not to block the Republican-backed Texas law banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy put abortion-rights advocates including Biden on high alert.

The justices now have a chance to go even further. They will hear a case on Dec. 1 in which Mississippi is defending its law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Mississippi’s Republican attorney general is asking the court to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide and ended an era when some states banned it.

In another blockbuster case, the justices could make it easier for people to obtain permits to carry handguns outside the home, a major expansion of firearms rights. They will consider on Nov. 3 whether to invalidate a New York state regulation that lets people obtain a concealed-carry permit only if they can show they need a gun for self-defense.

CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS

Former President Donald Trump was able to appoint three conservative justices including Barrett who tilted the court further rightward, with the help of maneuvering by a key fellow Republican, Senator Mitch McConnell.

The Democratic-led Congress has held two hearings in recent months on how the court has increasingly decided major issues, including the Texas abortion one, with late-night emergency decisions using its “shadow docket” process that lacks customary public oral arguments.

“The Supreme Court has now shown that it’s willing to allow even facially unconstitutional laws to take effect when the law is aligned with certain ideological preferences,” Democrat Dick Durbin, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s chairman, said on Wednesday.

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito in a speech on Thursday objected to criticism that portrays the court’s members as a “dangerous cabal that resorts to sneaky and improper methods.”

“This portrayal feeds unprecedented efforts to intimidate the court or damage it as an independent institution,” Alito said.

Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas last month said judges are “asking for trouble” if they wade into political issues. Thomas has previously said Roe v. Wade should be overturned, as many conservatives have sought.

Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer noted in a May speech that the court’s legitimacy relies in part on avoiding major upheavals in the law when people have come to rely on existing precedents.

“The law might not be perfect but if you’re changing it all the time people won’t know what to do, and the more you change it the more people will ask to have it changed,” Breyer said.

Abortion rights advocates have cited the fact that Roe v. Wade has been in place for almost a half century as one reason not to overturn it.

Breyer, at 83 the court’s oldest member, himself is the focus of attention. Some liberal activists have urged him to retire so Biden can appoint a younger liberal who could serve for decades. Breyer has said he has not decided when he will retire.

George Mason University law professor Jenn Mascott, a former Thomas law clerk, said the justices should not be swayed by public opinion.

“What the justices have said they want to do is decide each case on the rule the law,” Mascott said. “I don’t think they should be thinking that the perception would be that they are too partisan one way or another.”

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham and Scott Malone)

El Salvador women march against abortion laws amid planned Latin America-wide protests

By Ana Isabel Martinez and Gerardo Arbaiza

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) – Scores of people in El Salvador waved green flags and marched through the capital San Salvador en route to Congress to demand loosening of the country’s “strict” abortion laws, with similar protests planned across Latin American cities.

Holding up banners saying “it’s our right to decide” and “legal abortion, safe and free,” the mostly-women protesters met as part of the “International Safe Abortion Day” being marked around the globe.

The Salvadoran protesters sought to pressure the country’s legislators to ease one of the world’s strictest abortion laws, which prohibit termination of pregnancy in cases of rape and even if the mother’s life is at risk.

The proposals taken to the Salvadoran Congress have been named “Beatriz Reform,” in honor of a young woman who in 2013 openly called for an abortion to save her life as she suffered from a chronic disease, which took her life four years later.

“We are asking for minimum measures to add to the Penal Code to guarantee the life and integrity of women,” Morena Herrera, a prominent Salvadoran feminist, told journalists.

“It does not require constitutional reform. It can be done now and if it is true that there is independence of powers, the Legislative Assembly must respond,” she added.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele earlier this month ruled out any amendments to the abortion laws as part of controversial constitutional changes his government is planning.

Protests are also planned later in the day in Colombia and several cities in Mexico and Chile.

Sweeping changes across the predominantly Roman Catholic region have seen abortion law amended in some nations, including Argentina and parts of Mexico.

But several out of more than 20 Latin American nations still ban abortion outright, including El Salvador, which has sentenced some women to up to 40 years in prison.

Mexican authorities have put up protective fences on key buildings and emblematic monuments across several cities where women are expected to hold rallies. In the past, protesters have painted over historic monuments.

Protesters were also gathering in the Chilean capital Santiago, where legislators have been discussing plans for a bill that would expand the legal access for women to get abortions.

(Reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez in Mexico City and Gerardo Arbaiza in San Salvador; Editing by Drazen Jorgic and Sandra Maler)

Chile lawmakers take ‘first step’ towards easing abortion rules

By Fabian Cambero

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Chile’s lower Chamber of Deputies approved on Tuesday a plan to debate a bill that would expand the legal access for women to get abortions, despite opposition from the South American country’s center-right government.

The lower house passed the motion with 75 votes in favor versus 68 against and two abstentions, which allows it to move forward examining the bill that proposed legalizing termination of pregnancy up to 14 weeks.

The bill still faces a lengthy process before it could become law. Chile in 2017 legalized abortion for women under conditions where their life was in danger, a fetus was unviable or when a pregnancy had resulted from rape.

“We are happy and excited because we have taken a tremendous step, which we did not expect, to be honest, in terms of the rights of women,” said lawmaker Maite Orsini, one of the promoters of the bill.

“This is a first step and we are not going to stop fighting until abortion is legal, free and safe for all women in Chile.”

The bill will now have to be reviewed by the legislative body’s Commission for Women and Gender Equity and then be voted on again in the Chamber of Deputies, before moving up to the Senate.

A number of countries around conservative Latin America have taken steps to decriminalize abortion, including Argentina last year and Mexico, where the Supreme Court unanimously ruled this month that penalizing abortion is unconstitutional.

(Reporting by Fabian Cambero; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Nick Macfie)

Abortion providers ask U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in challenge to Texas law

By Andrew Chung

(Reuters) -Abortion providers in Texas on Thursday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene on an urgent basis in their challenge to a state law imposing a near-total ban on abortion.

The providers asked the justices to hear their case before lower courts have finished ruling on the dispute because of the “great harm the ban is causing.” The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, this month refused to block the law, which bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.

The Texas law is unusual in that it gives private citizens the power to enforce it by enabling them to sue anyone who assists a woman in getting an abortion past the six-week cutoff. That feature has helped shield the law from being immediately blocked as it made it more difficult to directly sue the government.

In their petition to the Supreme Court, the abortion providers including Whole Woman’s Health and other advocacy groups said that the justices should decide if the state can “insulate” its law from federal court review by delegating its enforcement to the general public.

The Supreme Court rarely agrees to hear a case before lower courts have had a chance to weigh in with their own rulings. But in the court’s 5-4 decision on Sept. 1 to let the law stand for now, the dissenting justices, including conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, expressed skepticism about how the law is enforced.

Roberts said he would have blocked the law’s enforcement at that point “so that the courts may consider whether a state can avoid responsibility for its laws in such a manner.”

The providers said that the ban has eliminated the vast majority of abortions in the state given the threat of “ruinous liability,” causing Texans to have to travel hundreds of miles (km) to other states, causing backlogs there.

“Texans are in crisis,” they said in a legal filing.

Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration on Sept 9 sued Texas, seeking to block enforcement of the Republican-backed law, as his fellow Democrats fear the right to abortion established in 1973 may be at risk.

The Texas law is the latest Republican-backed measure passed at the state level restricting abortion.

The measure prohibits abortion at a point when many women do not even realize they are pregnant. Under the law, individual citizens can be awarded a minimum of $10,000 for bringing successful lawsuits against those who perform or help others obtain an abortion that violates the ban.

The providers said that they have been forced to comply with the law because defending against these lawsuits, even if they prevail, would amount to “costly, and potentially bankrupting, harassment.”

The Supreme Court already is set to consider a major abortion case on Dec. 1 in a dispute centering on Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban in which that state has asked the justices to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide and ended an era when some states had banned the procedure. A ruling is due by the end of June 2022.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editig by Will Dunham)

U.S. House Democrats advance abortion rights bill, Senate passage unlikely

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives advanced a bill on Tuesday that would protect the right to abortion and annul some new restrictions passed by Republican-controlled state governments.

If the “Women’s Health Protection Act” passes the Democratic-controlled House, it is unlikely to succeed in the 100-member Senate, where Republicans also are a minority but hold enough votes to prevent it from reaching the 60-vote threshold to pass most legislation.

Democrats sent the bill to the full House after a law took effect in Texas early this month that almost completely bans abortion in the state.

The right to abortion was established in the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, but abortion-rights advocates fear it could be overturned when the court, now with a 6-3 conservative majority, hears Mississippi’s bid to overturn that decision.

“Action is both urgent and necessary,” said Representative Norma Torres during a hearing of the House Rules Committee, which voted 9-4 along party lines to advance the legislation to the full House.

Republicans attacked the legislation, arguing that it would expand access to abortions beyond the intent of Roe v. Wade.

“It’s the fiercest assault on the unborn since Roe was decided,” said Representative Tom Cole, the senior House Rules panel Republican. He added that the Democrats’ bill “would pre-empt any state law that seeks to protect (unborn) life.”

While a majority of Americans for many years have supported at least some forms of abortion, it is one of the most divisive issues in American society.

A mid-June Reuters/Ipsos survey found that 52% of adults said abortion should be legal in “most” or “all” cases, while 36% said it should be illegal.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Scott Malone and Peter Cooney)

San Marino abortion debate heats up ahead of historic referendum

By Angelo Amante and Emily Roe

SAN MARINO (Reuters) – One of Europe’s staunchest opponents to legal abortion could fall on Sunday when San Marino, a tiny and deeply Catholic republic landlocked in Italy, holds a referendum to overturn a law dating back to 1865.

A “Yes” vote will bring some relief for pro-choice supporters further afield who have been dismayed as authorities in countries like Poland and in the U.S. state of Texas have tightened laws.

In the mountainous enclave of 33,000 people, women who end their pregnancies risk three years’ imprisonment. The term is twice as long for anyone who carries out their abortion.

As the campaign enters its final week emotions are running high between traditionalists and the referendum’s promoters, with hard-hitting posters on the medieval streets.

Vanessa Muratori, a member of the San Marino Women’s Union, believes the Sept. 26 plebiscite will crown a personal 18-year battle to give San Marino women the same rights as in Italy, where abortion has been legal since 1978.

“I care about my country and I want it to be civilized,” she says. “I feel like a link in a chain of women’s emancipation that goes beyond San Marino.”

Elsewhere in Europe, the Mediterranean island of Malta, and the micro-states of Andorra and the Vatican City, another Italian enclave, still ban abortion altogether.

Muratori set up a feminist association in 1994 and presented a bill to legalize abortion to San Marino’s legislative council in 2003. It received just two votes in favor and 16 against.

The experience brought home to her the extent of the religion-based resistance to change, and convinced her that a well prepared campaign was needed to win over her compatriots’ hearts and minds.

Success on Sunday will allow abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy and thereafter only in the case of the mother’s life being in danger or of grave malformation of the fetus.

SLOW PROGRESS

In Europe’s last referendum on abortion, the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar voted in June to ease what remain extremely strict curbs.

Ireland legalized abortion in a far higher-profile referendum in 2018, while this month the state of Texas went in the other direction, introducing a law that bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

Social progress has always been slow in San Marino.

Women did not get the right to vote until 1960, 14 years after surrounding Italy, and have only been allowed to hold political office since 1974. Divorce was legalized in 1986, some 16 years after Italy.

Nonetheless, Muratori’s Women’s Union, campaigning from a gazebo in a children’s playground near the Italian border, has made inroads into the conservative mentality, and gathered 3,000 signatures to launch the vote, three times more than required.

“From my point of view this referendum shouldn’t even be necessary, choosing whether to have a baby or not should be part of a woman’s human freedom,” said Anita Alvarez, a 20-year-old student.

The ‘No’ campaign is equally determined. Using the slogan “one of us,” its core message is that the unborn child should have the same rights as all San Marino citizens.

Marina Corsi, a pharmacist active with the ‘NO’ committee, said this principle should not be compromised even in cases of rape or the certainty of severe disability for the unborn baby.

“It is not the baby who is guilty in rape cases, it is the rapist who should be punished, not the child,” she said.

As things stand, San Marino women wanting an abortion normally go to Italy, where they can only get one privately, at a cost of around 1,500 euros ($1,766).

“Women are forced to seek healthcare …as criminals because they are rejected by their own state,” said Karen Pruccoli, a businesswoman who is a member of the ‘YES’ committee backing the referendum.

(Writing by Gavin Jones; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)