Ethical and Legal Aspects of Using the Abortion Pill RU-486 in Italy in the Years 2020-2021

Abstract

In some countries, one of the most difficult bioethical challenges of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic has been a sharp rise in the number of chemical abortions performed in hospitals, outpatient clinics, or at home. Limited access to medical services at public and private healthcare facilities and the development of telemedicine have resulted in the practice of chemical abortion having largely moved from hospitals and clinics to the home. Chemical abortion is a method used only in the early stages of pregnancy, i.e. up to 7-9 weeks. The first stage of abortion involves taking RU-486, a pill containing a preparation called Mifepristone which kills the newly conceived life in the mother’s womb. The second stage of chemical abortion involves the use of a preparation called Misoprostol, which leads to the expulsion of the dead embryo from the woman’s body.
 The main goal of the article is to analyze the ethical and legal dispute in Italy in the years 2020 and 2021 concerning new ways of using the abortion pill RU-486. In August 2020, the Italian Ministry of Health decided that chemical abortion – performed using the medical preparation RU-486 – should not be practiced at hospital gynecological and obstetric wards, but in day hospitals, without the requirement of hospitalization for women performing such abortions. Analyses carried out in the article show that chemical abortion not only kills the life of a human embryo, but in some cases may also be dangerous to the life and health of the mother. The liberalization of chemical abortion in Italy has led to an increase in the number of unborn children who are aborted, as it facilitates access to this type of abortion and makes it a procedure that is largely self-administered at home. The Italian dispute over home abortion and the RU-486 pill is linked to other serious bioethical debates that are currently taking place in many countries around the world