Juliette Gagliardi
Junior Researcher
Abortion in Italy - Statistics & Facts
Since 1978, women in Italy have been eligible to have a voluntary interruption of pregnancy within the first 90 days of gestation, given a health, economic, or social reason. Abortion is provided free of charge by the National Healthcare Service. After the legalization of abortion, the number of abortions in Italy peaked in 1983, with almost 234 thousand, while in 2021 this figure was considerably lower. The abortion rate in Italy was 5.49 per 1,000 women in 2022, which is over seven times lower than the abortion rate worldwide.
Specifics on abortion in Italy
In Italy most abortions are performed in public hospitals and the percentage of women experiencing complications after an abortion is very low for both surgical and pharmaceutical procedures. In 2022 the most common intervention for induced abortion was the use of mifepristone and prostaglandin, with almost 50 percent of women who had an abortion undergoing this procedure. In 2021, the region with the highest number of abortions was Lombardy, however, the highest abortion rate was observed in Liguria, which was also the region with the second-lowest average age of women having an abortion, with about 29.8 years. Almost 60 percent of public hospitals in Italy perform abortions, and the rate of gynecologists and anesthesiologists who are conscientious objectors and therefore do not perform abortions is quite high.Abortion among underage women
The highest number of abortions among underage women in 2021 were performed in the North of Italy, with 778 abortions. However, the region with the highest underage abortion rate was Molise, with 4.4 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-17 years, followed by the regions of Apulia and Liguria. For most of those minors, approval for the procedure was given by the parents.
