San Marino residents vote overwhelmingly to legalize abortion

(Image credit: AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

published 27 September 2021

In San Marino, about 77 percent of voters approved a referendum proposal on Sunday making abortion legal in the country.

San Marino is a republic surrounded by Italy, home to about 33,000 people. The proposal calls for making abortion legal in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, or later if a woman's life is in danger, and now that it has passed, San Marino's Parliament must draft a bill legalizing the procedure, The Associated Press reports.

A majority Catholic state, San Marino criminalized abortion in 1865, and the referendum was set for Sunday after 3,000 people signed a petition to overturn the law. Abortion has been legal in Italy since 1978, and women in San Marino in need of the procedure usually cross the border. Sara Casadei was part of the campaign in support of the measure, and she told AP she backed it "for the simple reason that it seemed right that women have a choice and aren't forced to go somewhere else, but to have the services on our own territory."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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