San Marino residents on Sunday voted overwhelmingly to legalise abortion, rejecting a 150-year-old law that had criminalised it and making the tiny republic the latest majority Catholic state to approve the procedure under certain circumstances, according to nearly complete returns.
With 33 of 37 polling stations counted, some 77 per cent of voters approved making abortion legal in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. It will also be legal beyond that point if the woman’s life is in danger or if her physical or psychological health is at risk because of fetal anomalies or malformations, according to official returns broadcast on San Marino television.
Turnout was 41 per cent in the microstate of 33,000 people surrounded by Italy.
San Marino, one of the world’s oldest republics, had been one of the last European states that still criminalised abortion. With Sunday’s result, it now joins other similarly Catholic states like Ireland, which legalised abortion in 2018 and neighbouring Italy, where abortion has been legal since 1978. Abortion is still illegal in Malta and Andorra, and Poland introduced a near-total ban on the procedure this year.
The San Marino referendum was set after around 3,000 people signed a petition drive to overturn the microstate’s abortion law, which dates from 1865. With the “yes” votes winning, San Marino’s Parliament must now take steps to legalise the procedure.
Women in San Marino seeking an abortion usually go to neighbouring Italy for the procedure. But proponents of the referendum say that puts an undue financial burden on them and penalises women who have fallen pregnant as a result of rape.
Source link : https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3150207/san-marino-residents-vote-overwhelmingly-legalise-abortion
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Publish date : 2021-09-27 07:00:00
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