ted in the meantime.
The position is serious. Thousands of women die each year, and more are seriously maimed, as a result of the millions of illegal abortions (the 1969 Congress of Italian Gynaecologists estimated the figure at about three million annually). The growing pro-abortion movement 20,000 joined a demonstration in Rome on 6 December - threatens to bring about the same sort of upheaval that occurred during the divorce campaign. The ruling class do not want to face that again.
Leading the campaign for change are the Radical Party (which a so led Ine divorce battle) and tne women s The former, together with the Italian Committee for Stermisation anu Abortion, nas organisea clinics where abortions can be cheaply obtained. The Florence clinic was raided a year ago and Adele Faccio, ICA's secretary, and Gianfranco Spadaccia, Radical Party secretary, were both arrested.
Last year, too, the Radical Party persuaded Socialist Party MP Loris Desperate attempts are now being made by the various Italian parliamentary parties to reach a compromise agreement which can halt the abortion movement in its tracks without creating the kind of major split which resulted from the divorce referendum in 1974. Because well over the required half million signatures were collected, a referendum on abortion must be held by mid-June unless an acceptable parliamentary bill can be presenFortuna (who piloted the divorce legislation) to amend his luke-warm 1973 abortion bill to give free abortion on demand during the first three months. This reflected the increasing impact of the campaign.
In 1973, a poll showed only 36.6 per cent of women in favour of liberalisation. A year later, this had increased to 72.5 per cent.
The Vatican has responded to abortionists by producing a new "sex-manual' which reiterates all the tired old formulas about the ality of women attempting to con trol their fertility in order to gain The childless old celibates of the Church are again pronouncing on try to ensure that they have only those children they want and can cope with.
parties, including the Communists, the increasing pressure from the prosanctity of the family and the immor a small measure of personal freedom.
the selfishness of young women who The antics of the various political Christian Democrats). tor.