Abortion is legal in this country, and any woman can go to the hospital (as in the ER), or at a consultorio familiare to initiate the process. Both options are free of charge and free of judgement, especially the latter. As to why these two websites were rendered inaccessible it beats me, as there are many other local alternatives one may peruse, and they're all accessible. Hell, even the Italian Government Website has resources[1][2]!
> As to why these two websites were rendered inaccessible it beats me, as there are many other local alternatives one may peruse, and they're all accessible.
Because, presumably, abortion is legal only in specific circumstances (first trimester, I imagine) and these websites are bypassing that.
FTFA:
> Today, Women on Web facilitates online access to abortion pills
I'd expect any website that provides access to non-over-the-counter pills is operating against the law. I mean, it'd be nice if I can buy antibiotics online, but I can't in my jurisdiction.
Ah that does it. Abortion pills are not candies. There's a reason why they are expected to be used in a hospital setting, with medical personnel nearby. If these websites facilitate the distribution of prescription meds, they're no different from other "online pharmacies" and get the same treatment
In Hungary abortion is technically legal but only surgically, and the public health system is mental torture including being forced to listen to the heartbeat of the fetus (thanks to our local fascist party). Women on Web is a million times more humane. It's not like anyone thinks "oh I'm pregnant I'll just pop a pill and it's solved".
I support abortion rights, but I also think that it's a good idea to know what you're doing, especially if we're talking about an abortion where the heart has started beating. I don't think that torture is the right word for that practice.
I stand by this comment, downvote all you like folks.
Friendly reminder that at the 6th week, when the heartbeat is detectable, the body is still undecided whether it will keep the fetus. It's not an indicator of anything - just something we're emotionally attached to as humans.
20-25% otherwise healthy pregnancies end spontaneously before the 12th week and it's a mechanism used in non-surgical abortion.
At the 8th week my SO's gynecologist made an offhand remark not to get attached just yet, because we were still within the window where that happens.
> but I also think that it's a good idea to know what you're doing
Why do so many people say this about women and their bodies? You seriously think the vast majority of women considering an abortion haven’t given it much thought? Should they all have to face more obstructions and guilt trips and patronizing lectures because a handful maybe don’t? It’s ridiculous.
As for the “heartbeat” standard, I’m not getting in to it, suffice to say that should not be a bar here for deciding a woman’s rights.
> I stand by this comment, downvote all you like folks.
I wasn’t going to until this part of your comment.
> In Hungary abortion is technically legal but only surgically, and the public health system is mental torture including being forced to listen to the heartbeat of the fetus (thanks to our local fascist party). Women on Web is a million times more humane. It's not like anyone thinks "oh I'm pregnant I'll just pop a pill and it's solved".
Hang on, how is listening to the heartbeat mental torture?
Look, I'm generally pro-abortion, but I consider it a continuous spectrum and not a binary switch. At some fuzzy point the foetus is more than a collection of cells. The whole argument is "where is that point?"
Abortion 1 month after conception? I can't really argue against. Abortion 1 day before birth? That's clearly already a child and I will object.
If it was so clear-cut the issue wouldn't be so polarising.
It's torture because abortion is never a trivial decision to make - by the time a person has decided to get an abortion and not become a parent we should respect their wishes. If a decision has been made there's no reason to cause pointless emotional grief before executing the operation.
Just want to point out, it’s polarising because it’s a wedge issues that divides voting blocks neatly, and nothing to do with it being The Issue that it is.
More people die from obesity, cars, flu, preventable illness, etc. But we discuss endless this one issue… it’s for political science reasons not humanity/moral/etc reasons.
It's an unreasonable argument because the people who treat medication like candy are far less common than the people who are restricted from seeking medical assistance due to repressive family situations.
In Italy these services are thankfully not restricted in the same way they are in, say, America - but there are still plenty of life situations (like suffering SA from a family member) where shame, social pressures and threats can cause the regular medical system to be hard to access.
That is a far more reasonable scenario than "I just love popping abortion pills!"
in this part of the world, Mexico is known for public pharmacies that sell wildly-strong drugs of different kinds easily.. I doubt there are any websites that list what you can actually get if you walk in with cash
Finding an obiettore is a somewhat rare circumstance in a hospital, but it's unlikely in a consultorio familiare; those are structures whose only purpose is reproductive health, gynecological care, social services, and psychological consult, especially aimed at teens and women. If you're an objector you generally don't go out of your way to work there.
I’m sure you’re aware that it _greatly_ depends on the region you’re living in. The fact that consultori are for reproductive health doesn’t mean that there are no obiettori: for some of them the purpose of those structures are exactly to prevent abortions. There are many accounts of women who were pushed to not interrupting a pregnancy.
Read the article. It's 67% of registered obgyns and fully 100% of some hospitals. Why would you believe it's 1 of 1000 in a world where countries consistently successfully create legislature targeting women?
> In 2019, it was reported that 67% of Italian gynecologists were registered as conscientious objectors and multiple hospitals reported having a 100% conscientious objection rate.
I couldn't find any information, either. The only thing I was able to find were many posts on Reddit from women trying to get these websites to send them abortion pills.
I assume that this might be the reason why they got blocked--or if not a possibility.
I don't understand why women would need these websites, there are plenty of free resources like local hospitals and doctors who are generally completely fine with abortion.
It is indeed legal, but gynaecologists can object to help for conscientious reasons (65% do) and in quite a few hospitals, 100% do object, especially in the south. So in practice access to it is not always that easy.
Agree about that. The question is whether all websites providing black-market potentially generous medications are being targeted or specifically just abortion pills. I genuinely do not know, this might be making the news but actually be part of a wide blockage.
Sure, but access is easy enough. Not worse than anything else than the government does.
Much better than--let's say--getting an MRI.
Looks like this thread has gotten the attention of weird activists that want to find injustice everywhere and jump to conclusion--as long as the conclusion is women oppressed and censored.
I don't think GP was making that argument (well, I didn't read it that way). He's just saying that access may not be easy.
[EDIT: I see GP did reply to parent, and he apparently was making that asinine argument :-/ Oh well, at least I interpreted original GP comment charitably]
It's bizarre to me that countries in Europe can just compel their ISPs to block websites completely without any judicial review. That kind of thing would run afoul of all kinds of first amendment litigation in the US. The FBI will occasionally seize a domain, but only after a court order.
Yes but... you used the word "belief". Nothing scientific there.
If the mother was raped and knows for sure she will not bring up her rapist's kid ... or if there is a possibility that letting the baby be born will kill the mother, MY belief is to follow the mother's wishes.
If someone is morally opposed to abortion, they don’t need to have one. That’s where it should end, there’s no need to control the bodies of others due to a moral belief that other people don’t hold.
The issue with abortion is that some think the fetus deserves legal protection because it is equivalent to a human baby. So, they don't think it should be killed. In Italy, abortion is allowed in the first 90 days. After that, it is illegal. These websites were providing abortion pills to be used past the 90 day period, which is illegal.
So, these websites were being blocked because they were engaged in illegal activity.
Controlling reproduction means controlling women. Controlling women seems to be a high priority for crotchety old men. But that doesn't really answer your question, it just rephrases it.
I think it is like anorexia. Someone who has no control over their own lives tries to control the few things they can. An anorexic controls their food, but a married man controls his wife and kids. It makes even the weakest person feel strong to have someone to boss around.
> Controlling reproduction means controlling women. Controlling women seems to be a high priority for crotchety old men.
You ignore that so many prominent anti-abortion activists are women. I think for example of Joanna Howe, [0] who is arguably the most prominent activist against abortion rights in contemporary Australia-and far from some “crotchety old man”, she is a 43 year old law professor.
The first thing she did in office was a order to be called "il signor presidente", masculine of the correct "la signora presidente".
She's not an old man but behaves as such and the fascist side of her support is strongly misogynist.
I zeroed in on khalic's mention of "far right populism" which I thought was a universal term, but skrebbel made it sound like that doesn't apply to Italy (but I still think it does), so I clarified.
I don't think you need an analogy like that to explain why people want to control women. They want to control women for the same reason they want to control men. Is it any mystery why people seek power? Those with power can decide how to distribute the resources of the society in a way that preferences them and their inner circle.
Access to reproduction is one of the most basic resources a society has available. It is common for the old men to control the young men by being the ones to decide who gets access to women. "Work for us loyally, and we'll allow you to get married"
I don't think they are trying to control men. I'm not seeing any evidence of that. When I see a law that attacks women, it is very clearly targeted towards women, but I don't see anything that clearly targets men.
Controlling women means controlling men. The most basic way to do that is by controlling who is allowed to get married. Attacks against the reproductive rights of women are caused by a desire to avoid "side channels" by which a couple could avoid passing through the systems established to control marriage.
Society became much more complex than a tribal village where the elders decide everything, and so have the levels of indirection in how control of reproduction is wielded. The situation is also quite a bit more complicated now that populations are able to grow so far above the local carrying capacity of the land. Yet we can still trace a line back to when it was necessary for a community to collectively maintain the sustainability of their population by deciding how many children could be supported at any one time.
This is the kind of rational you arrive to, if you spend too much time in feminist circles and never bother to actually try to understand the other side. I can assure you that nobody thinks in terms of "controlling women".
Abortion is legal in this country, and any woman can go to the hospital (as in the ER), or at a consultorio familiare to initiate the process. Both options are free of charge and free of judgement, especially the latter. As to why these two websites were rendered inaccessible it beats me, as there are many other local alternatives one may peruse, and they're all accessible. Hell, even the Italian Government Website has resources[1][2]!
[1] https://www.salute.gov.it/new/it/tema/salute-della-donna/
[2] https://www.salute.gov.it/new/it/tema/salute-della-donna/int...
> As to why these two websites were rendered inaccessible it beats me, as there are many other local alternatives one may peruse, and they're all accessible.
Because, presumably, abortion is legal only in specific circumstances (first trimester, I imagine) and these websites are bypassing that.
FTFA:
> Today, Women on Web facilitates online access to abortion pills
I'd expect any website that provides access to non-over-the-counter pills is operating against the law. I mean, it'd be nice if I can buy antibiotics online, but I can't in my jurisdiction.
Ah that does it. Abortion pills are not candies. There's a reason why they are expected to be used in a hospital setting, with medical personnel nearby. If these websites facilitate the distribution of prescription meds, they're no different from other "online pharmacies" and get the same treatment
In Hungary abortion is technically legal but only surgically, and the public health system is mental torture including being forced to listen to the heartbeat of the fetus (thanks to our local fascist party). Women on Web is a million times more humane. It's not like anyone thinks "oh I'm pregnant I'll just pop a pill and it's solved".
I support abortion rights, but I also think that it's a good idea to know what you're doing, especially if we're talking about an abortion where the heart has started beating. I don't think that torture is the right word for that practice.
I stand by this comment, downvote all you like folks.
Friendly reminder that at the 6th week, when the heartbeat is detectable, the body is still undecided whether it will keep the fetus. It's not an indicator of anything - just something we're emotionally attached to as humans.
20-25% otherwise healthy pregnancies end spontaneously before the 12th week and it's a mechanism used in non-surgical abortion.
At the 8th week my SO's gynecologist made an offhand remark not to get attached just yet, because we were still within the window where that happens.
> but I also think that it's a good idea to know what you're doing
Why do so many people say this about women and their bodies? You seriously think the vast majority of women considering an abortion haven’t given it much thought? Should they all have to face more obstructions and guilt trips and patronizing lectures because a handful maybe don’t? It’s ridiculous.
As for the “heartbeat” standard, I’m not getting in to it, suffice to say that should not be a bar here for deciding a woman’s rights.
> I stand by this comment, downvote all you like folks.
I wasn’t going to until this part of your comment.
> In Hungary abortion is technically legal but only surgically, and the public health system is mental torture including being forced to listen to the heartbeat of the fetus (thanks to our local fascist party). Women on Web is a million times more humane. It's not like anyone thinks "oh I'm pregnant I'll just pop a pill and it's solved".
Hang on, how is listening to the heartbeat mental torture?
Look, I'm generally pro-abortion, but I consider it a continuous spectrum and not a binary switch. At some fuzzy point the foetus is more than a collection of cells. The whole argument is "where is that point?"
Abortion 1 month after conception? I can't really argue against. Abortion 1 day before birth? That's clearly already a child and I will object.
If it was so clear-cut the issue wouldn't be so polarising.
It's torture because abortion is never a trivial decision to make - by the time a person has decided to get an abortion and not become a parent we should respect their wishes. If a decision has been made there's no reason to cause pointless emotional grief before executing the operation.
Just want to point out, it’s polarising because it’s a wedge issues that divides voting blocks neatly, and nothing to do with it being The Issue that it is.
More people die from obesity, cars, flu, preventable illness, etc. But we discuss endless this one issue… it’s for political science reasons not humanity/moral/etc reasons.
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. The explanation sounds very reasonable.
It's an unreasonable argument because the people who treat medication like candy are far less common than the people who are restricted from seeking medical assistance due to repressive family situations.
In Italy these services are thankfully not restricted in the same way they are in, say, America - but there are still plenty of life situations (like suffering SA from a family member) where shame, social pressures and threats can cause the regular medical system to be hard to access.
That is a far more reasonable scenario than "I just love popping abortion pills!"
in this part of the world, Mexico is known for public pharmacies that sell wildly-strong drugs of different kinds easily.. I doubt there are any websites that list what you can actually get if you walk in with cash
"Both options are free of charge and free of judgement, especially the latter"
You sure about that? Unfortunately there's a thing called "obiezione di coscienza" (TL;DR: doctors opposing abortion because they're catholics). Feel free to translate this article: https://www.editorialedomani.it/fatti/aborto-obiezione-cosci...
Finding an obiettore is a somewhat rare circumstance in a hospital, but it's unlikely in a consultorio familiare; those are structures whose only purpose is reproductive health, gynecological care, social services, and psychological consult, especially aimed at teens and women. If you're an objector you generally don't go out of your way to work there.
I’m sure you’re aware that it _greatly_ depends on the region you’re living in. The fact that consultori are for reproductive health doesn’t mean that there are no obiettori: for some of them the purpose of those structures are exactly to prevent abortions. There are many accounts of women who were pushed to not interrupting a pregnancy.
That's like 1 out of 1000 doctors, just go to another doctor. And even if that wasn't the case, what is the government supposed to do about that?
Read the article. It's 67% of registered obgyns and fully 100% of some hospitals. Why would you believe it's 1 of 1000 in a world where countries consistently successfully create legislature targeting women?
Because I'm from Italy and I have women friends and I know that there are a lot of places where you can get a prescription for abortion pills.
We don't need random websites to hand out prescription drugs to kids.
> In 2019, it was reported that 67% of Italian gynecologists were registered as conscientious objectors and multiple hospitals reported having a 100% conscientious objection rate.
The same thing you'd do with a doctor with a penchant for harming their patients. Strip their license.
I couldn't find any information, either. The only thing I was able to find were many posts on Reddit from women trying to get these websites to send them abortion pills.
I assume that this might be the reason why they got blocked--or if not a possibility.
I don't understand why women would need these websites, there are plenty of free resources like local hospitals and doctors who are generally completely fine with abortion.
Which medications were they trying to get? Plan B or something that works later?
I couldn't find a lot of information, but abortion is a right in Italy.
Women seeking terminations in the first 90 days of pregnancy are protected under law 194.
From what I got, these organizations illegally sent women abortion pills.
At least when I was young and still living in Italy, you could walk into a hospital and they'd give you abortion pills or day after pills for free.
I guess it has to be a hospital/doctor and not a random website?
Not sure.
It is indeed legal, but gynaecologists can object to help for conscientious reasons (65% do) and in quite a few hospitals, 100% do object, especially in the south. So in practice access to it is not always that easy.
> So in practice access to it is not always that easy.
Understood, but the solution cannot be "allow prescription drugs to be sold online".
If access is not easy, there needs to be a different solution.
Agree about that. The question is whether all websites providing black-market potentially generous medications are being targeted or specifically just abortion pills. I genuinely do not know, this might be making the news but actually be part of a wide blockage.
Sure, but access is easy enough. Not worse than anything else than the government does.
Much better than--let's say--getting an MRI.
Looks like this thread has gotten the attention of weird activists that want to find injustice everywhere and jump to conclusion--as long as the conclusion is women oppressed and censored.
That's because they don't want to get sued.
So, you think the government should force doctors to perform abortions, like putting them in jail if they don't want to do it?
how's that different from any other medical procedure?
I don't think GP was making that argument (well, I didn't read it that way). He's just saying that access may not be easy.
[EDIT: I see GP did reply to parent, and he apparently was making that asinine argument :-/ Oh well, at least I interpreted original GP comment charitably]
Jail? No.
Big fine? Of course.
It's bizarre to me that countries in Europe can just compel their ISPs to block websites completely without any judicial review. That kind of thing would run afoul of all kinds of first amendment litigation in the US. The FBI will occasionally seize a domain, but only after a court order.
The upside of that ISP-enforced bans can be trivially bypassed by using your own DNS or a public DNS like Quad9.
What’s this fixation of far-right populists on genitals and reproduction? It’s really disturbing
Because if you believe this fetus to be a human life then it follows believing that if it is terminated, it is akin to murder/infanticide.
I don't know why people are being so (deliberatively?) reductive ITT.
Yes but... you used the word "belief". Nothing scientific there.
If the mother was raped and knows for sure she will not bring up her rapist's kid ... or if there is a possibility that letting the baby be born will kill the mother, MY belief is to follow the mother's wishes.
It's her body and her life.
If someone is morally opposed to abortion, they don’t need to have one. That’s where it should end, there’s no need to control the bodies of others due to a moral belief that other people don’t hold.
The issue with abortion is that some think the fetus deserves legal protection because it is equivalent to a human baby. So, they don't think it should be killed. In Italy, abortion is allowed in the first 90 days. After that, it is illegal. These websites were providing abortion pills to be used past the 90 day period, which is illegal.
So, these websites were being blocked because they were engaged in illegal activity.
As other commenter said, control over women. But this is not just some desperate attempt, but a way to get back to the roots.
Reproductive control undermines most right-wing ideologies; outlawing it patches up the cracks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinder,_K%C3%BCche,_Kirche
And in the US [1,2]:
2016 election: Approximately 39% to 42% of female voters cast their ballots for Trump.
2020 election: Approximately 44% of female voters cast their ballots for Trump.
2024 election: Approximately 46% of female voters cast their ballots for Trump
Like it or not -- and make no mistake, I don't like it -- many women want this.
----------
1: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voting-patte...
2: https://www.cfr.org/articles/women-voters-pivotal-role-elect...
Controlling reproduction means controlling women. Controlling women seems to be a high priority for crotchety old men. But that doesn't really answer your question, it just rephrases it.
I think it is like anorexia. Someone who has no control over their own lives tries to control the few things they can. An anorexic controls their food, but a married man controls his wife and kids. It makes even the weakest person feel strong to have someone to boss around.
> Controlling reproduction means controlling women. Controlling women seems to be a high priority for crotchety old men.
You ignore that so many prominent anti-abortion activists are women. I think for example of Joanna Howe, [0] who is arguably the most prominent activist against abortion rights in contemporary Australia-and far from some “crotchety old man”, she is a 43 year old law professor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_Howe
> crotchety old men
Such as Giorgia Meloni?
The first thing she did in office was a order to be called "il signor presidente", masculine of the correct "la signora presidente". She's not an old man but behaves as such and the fascist side of her support is strongly misogynist.
I don't know what is going on in Italy, but that's why we are doing it in America.
Oh, a post about Italy. Let's take this opportunity to talk about America :-D
I zeroed in on khalic's mention of "far right populism" which I thought was a universal term, but skrebbel made it sound like that doesn't apply to Italy (but I still think it does), so I clarified.
I don't think you need an analogy like that to explain why people want to control women. They want to control women for the same reason they want to control men. Is it any mystery why people seek power? Those with power can decide how to distribute the resources of the society in a way that preferences them and their inner circle.
Access to reproduction is one of the most basic resources a society has available. It is common for the old men to control the young men by being the ones to decide who gets access to women. "Work for us loyally, and we'll allow you to get married"
I don't think they are trying to control men. I'm not seeing any evidence of that. When I see a law that attacks women, it is very clearly targeted towards women, but I don't see anything that clearly targets men.
Controlling women means controlling men. The most basic way to do that is by controlling who is allowed to get married. Attacks against the reproductive rights of women are caused by a desire to avoid "side channels" by which a couple could avoid passing through the systems established to control marriage.
Society became much more complex than a tribal village where the elders decide everything, and so have the levels of indirection in how control of reproduction is wielded. The situation is also quite a bit more complicated now that populations are able to grow so far above the local carrying capacity of the land. Yet we can still trace a line back to when it was necessary for a community to collectively maintain the sustainability of their population by deciding how many children could be supported at any one time.
> When I see a law that attacks women, it is very clearly targeted towards women, but I don't see anything that clearly targets men.
Drafts? They typically only targeted men, with a large possibility of maiming or death as the result.
"After you get back from the war, your reward will be a wife and household."
> Access to reproduction is one of the most basic resources a society has available.
The topic is not access to reproduction. Nobody is controlling access to pregnancy.
> the ones to decide who gets access to women.
Nor is access to women.
This is the kind of rational you arrive to, if you spend too much time in feminist circles and never bother to actually try to understand the other side. I can assure you that nobody thinks in terms of "controlling women".
I'm a conservative and it's 100% about controlling women.