The tension between competing rights in a 'repugnant market': reproductive self-determination, abortion and social stigma in the Italian health care system

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to analyse the rules on abortion, conscientious objection among doctors, and the use of the RU486 pill as a form of pharmacological abortion in Italy. This short analysis focuses on conscientious objectors’ rights and anti-abortion advertising campaigns as possible counter-rights or challenges to the rights of women, referring to Alvin Roth’s theory of repugnance as a social construct and constraint of the market. By applying deductive and inductive methods to relevant legislation and case law, using statistical data on access to abortion and to RU486 in Italy, it proposes a re-enactment of how the above-mentioned ‘external factors’ affect women’s intimate choices and reproductive self-determination. In the concluding remarks it proposes alternative rationales and legal reasoning to contribute to the ongoing debate.