Destiny, Duty, Self-Determination. Abortion in Twentieth-Century Italy

Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, concerns about issues related to
abortion grew considerably in Italy. The reproductive sphere shifted towards the
public and political sphere. At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was an
explicit demand for direct state intervention, driven by nationalist demands. In the
mid-1920s, the Fascist regime initiated a pronatalist policy that culminated – during
the 1930s – in an unprecedented emphasis on the purely procreative function of
the female role and body and in the configuration of motherhood as a patriotic
duty. An essential part of the new penal code of 1930 (Title X) contained a list
of crimes against the «integrity and health of the race [stirpe]». Remaining in force
after 1946, the Rocco Code introduced harsh control over women’s reproductive
behavior and bodies. A watershed in the contemporary history of clandestine
abortion was the transition from the 1960s to the 1970s, when anti-abortion laws
in Western societies underwent a radical revision. In Italy, this occurred through
the approval of Law 194 in 1978.