Abortion began to emerge as an issue in Italy's election campaign on Tuesday after would-be centre-right premier Silvio Berlusconi backed a call for a United Nations moratorium on pregnancy terminations.
A pro-Berlusconi MP promised changes to abortion legislation if he should win election, left-wingers defended the existing law and an influential TV journalist said he was creating his own pro-life ticket for the April 13 vote.
The debate exploded into life on Monday evening when Berlusconi was quoted as telling a magazine that the UN ought to back a global ban on abortions, just as it did recently on the death penalty.
''I think that recognising the right to life from conception to natural death is a principle that the UN could make its own, just as it did with the moratorium on the death penalty,'' he said.
Berlusconi's statement was explicit backing for a campaign begun recently by journalist Giuliano Ferrara, editor of the Il Foglio daily and a former political associate.
Ferrara, the first person to call for a UN ban on abortion, has set up a single-issue political slate to further his battle and had asked for it to be allied with Berlusconi's new People of Freedom party.
Party officials urged him to simply join the new formation, saying ''our values are yours'', but the journalist turned down the offer and on Tuesday said he would run alone.
Apart from his support for the UN moratorium, Berlusconi's stand on abortion remained unclear on Tuesday.
He has said members of his party should be able to follow their consciences on such a delicate issue.
But Senator Maria Burani Procaccini, Berlusconi's party spokesperson on family issues, said that in the event of an election victory for the centre right it would present a bill to change abortion rules.
The current law, approved in 1978 amid a long battle with the Catholic-dominated establishment, allows abortions until the 90th day of pregnancy. It allows terminations after this point when the mother's health is at risk or when the foetus is deformed.
''The new law will allow abortion only in really justified cases and within the time-frame already envisaged,'' Burani Procaccini said.
Italian Catholics often complain that women are allowed abortions too easily and that thorough consultations envisaged by the 1978 law are little more than a formality.
Referring to another frequent accusation made by Italian pro-lifers, Burani Procaccini said: ''There will be tough sanctions for doctors who modify their diagnosis in order to certify non-existent problems with the foetus''.
Ferrara, the figure around whom the debate has focused, stresses that he is not in favour of making abortion illegal. But he says it is an evil which should be battled ''with intelligence and the help of the law''.
Most of the centre left has rejected his campaign as an attack on the ''right'' of women to abort and condemned Berlusconi for equating women who have abortions with people who carry out capital punishment.
Family Minister Rosy Bindi, a Catholic member of the Democratic Party, confirmed her personal opposition to abortion but said the issue should not be part of the election campaign because the debate would be muddied.
