Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy

In Italy, pregnancy termination is legal since 1978 and it is regulated in the law 194/78.

Until the 90th day, the termination can be voluntary and it is free of charge.

The VTP Programme involves all the healthcare activities offered for free by the Regional Health Service to comply with Italian law. In fact, under certain conditions, Italian law allows voluntary termination of pregnancy in public healthcare facilities.

Within this programme, the family counselling centre offers:

• obstetric and gynaecological consultations to calculate pregnancy date,
• the document/certificate that proves pregnancy status and time and also women's intention to carry out the VTP,
• useful information to plan pregnancy termination, which will be performed surgically or pharmacologically (based on the time of pregnancy) in the hospital or other clinics.

The programme has the following structure:

• before VTP
  • information,
  • psychological support,
  • social support,
  • gynaecological consultation,
  • certificate,
  • surgical/pharmacological VTP planning;
• after VTP
  • counselling and free contraceptives prescription/supply
  • gynaecological consultations.