About Us

Obiezione Respinta is a transfeminist project created with the aim of mapping conscientious objection in Italy and is part of the national network of NON UNA DI MENO. Based on anonymous testimonies, we have created a [map]](https://obiezionerespinta.info) that documents experiences of access to voluntary termination of pregnancy and contraception in hospitals, family planning clinics, and pharmacies.

We build networks to support people who face difficulties in accessing these reproductive health services. We believe in education and information as tools to dismantle the stigma around abortion and reproductive health. We fight against conscientious objection and obstetric and medical violence in hospitals, advocating for free, safe, and guaranteed abortion for all!

Ci incontriamo in assemblea a Exploit, uno spazio occupato e autogestito a Pisa in via Filippo Buonarroti 2. Si può partecipare all’assemblea in modalità mista, perché diversə di noi vivono in altre regioni o fuori dall’Italia.

Italy ranks at the top of the list of countries with the highest number of conscientious objectors in public hospitals. These statistics do not include pharmacists who, illegally, declare themselves as objectors informally and refuse to sell the morning-after or five-day-after pill.

In response to the rise in cases of conscientious objection, obstetric violence, and widespread misinformation about medical and healthcare practices affecting women and LGBTQI+ people, we felt the need to create a self-managed platform. This platform allows people to report places where conscientious objection (and more) is exercised, while also providing a free service for accessing information that is often difficult to find, such as services, opening hours, and more.

Article 9 of Law 194 addresses the right to conscientious objection. If conscientious objection is understood solely as a “right,” perhaps we need to consider what “right” really means. In a strongly patriarchal and capitalist society, a right is often what is granted to the white heterosexual man. Women, on the other hand, do not have the right to make decisions about their own bodies; they do not have the right to self-determination over their lives, their choices, or their sexuality.

Article 9 of Law 194 speaks of a “right to object,” a right over other people’s bodies, when we should instead be talking about the right to free and guaranteed healthcare for everyone, regardless of age, ethnicity, or a binary M-F gender classification. We should think of family planning clinics as spaces where decisions about our bodies are not filtered through Christian or pro-life organizations, where abortion is not channeled through psychological and motivational pathways, and where female sexuality and pleasure are not taboo.

Conscientious objection is just one of the many faces of what we call gender-based violence: we live in a society that, through a familialist and non-universal welfare system, does not allow us to exercise self-determination, and thus confines us within a family unit or a relationship. A society that, through institutional, legal, and cultural violence, continues to deny women the possibility of making choices about their own bodies, treating female sexuality as solely reproductive.

There is a need for more information and self-education that comes from the ground up, through dialogue among all of us. For this reason, we envisioned the creation of this map, where our experiences and knowledge are put at the service of everyone, creating a pathway that highlights and holds accountable all the places that deprive us of the right to choose and to self-determination.

Your “conscience” is a burden that we have to bear—when you don’t provide the morning-after pill at the pharmacy, when you refuse to prescribe RU486 in hospitals, when you prevent us from having an abortion or force us into inhumane obstetric situations—because you consider a woman who aborts unworthy of being called a woman after she has rejected the role and the “gift” she was given: that of being a mother.

With this map, we will report all pharmacies, hospitals, family planning clinics, and doctors who claim conscientious objection—and you can do it yourselves too. This service belongs to all of us, and it is up to us together to make sure that healthcare is not another field where gender-based violence is exercised.

Obiezione Respinta! On our bodies, on our sexuality, we decide.