Conscientious objection and waiting time for voluntary abortion in Italy

Abstract

Objectives This study sought to determine whether a correlation exists in Italy between conscience-based refusal by physicians to perform an abortion and waiting times for elective abortion.

Methods Data on the number of objectors and of elective abortions performed within different time intervals were retrieved from annual Italian ministerial reports. Spearman's correlation coefficients were calculated between an indicator of the increase in workload for non-objectors when conscientious objection is exercised by physicians refusing to provide an abortion and the proportion of women whose request for an abortion was met within 14 days, or later, in 13 regions in Italy.

Results An inverse correlation emerged between the workload for non-objectors and the proportion of abortions performed within 14 days of the request in seven regions (statistically significant in Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany). There was a direct correlation between increased workload and the proportion of abortions performed later than 21 days in nine regions. The same trends were highlighted at national level.

Conclusions Our results suggest that when data spanning at least more than a decade are available, a trend toward an inverse correlation can be noted between the workloads for non-objectors and timely access to elective abortion. This holds organisational and ethical implications.

Chinese Abstract

摘要： 目的 本研究的目的是确定意大利因医生的良心拒绝人流与意愿性流产的等待时间之间是否存在相关性。

方法 从每年意大利内阁报告中检索了在不同时间间隔反对流产者和选择性流产数量的数据。Spearman相关系数分析，计算当医生因良心拒绝提供流产时非反对者工作量增加的数量与在意大利的13个地区，流产要求在14天内或更久时间内得到满足的比例之间的关系。

结果 在7个地区内，非反对者的工作量与流产要求在14天内满足的比例呈负相关(在Emilia-Romagna 和Tuscany有统计学意义)。9个地区非反对者工作量的增加与超过21天进行流产的比例直接相关。在全国水平上也呈现同样的趋势。

结论 根据获得的至少超过十年的数据，我们的研究结果表明非反对者工作量增加与选择性流产等待时间呈负相关的趋势。这是组织和伦理的问题。

Keywords:

• Conscience-based refusal of care
• Abortion
• Waiting lists
• Health personnel
• Italy

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors wish to thank Kenneth Britsch for the translation of this paper.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors are responsible for the writing and content of the paper.

No funding was received for this study.