An Uncertain Secularisation: Reproductive Rights in Contemporary Italy

In: Pólemos: journal of law, literature and culture, Band 16, Heft 1, S. 75-96

Abstract

Abstract
The area of reproductive politics in Italy demonstrates both a process of secularisation and desecularisation. On the one hand the highly conservative Assisted Reproduction Act of 2004 has been challenged in the courts leading to a resecularisation of this area of law. On the other hand the Abortion Act of 1978 has been descularised by the high usage by doctors of the conscientious objection clause of the Act. This article looks at this parallel movement of both secularisation and desecularisation.