“Una malattia vera, costituzionale ed ereditaria”: la Consulta e l’illegittimità parziale del reato di aborto (sentenza 27/1975)

In the criminal proceedings against Carmosina M., the investigating judge at the Court of Milan raised the incidental question of the constitutionality of Article 546 of the Criminal Code. Through decision no. 27 of 1975, the Constitutional Court ruled on the section punishing anyone who causes the abortion of a consenting woman, even when it has been ascertained that the pregnancy poses a danger to her physical or psychological well-being. The ruling is an authentic caesura, giving rise to a “time in between”, before the “new time” brought about by the conditional decriminalisation through Law 194 of 1978. This contribution reconstructs and interprets this pivotal passage and situates it within a broader and articulated genealogy, considering it a specific but not entirely autonomous event.