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Groups of women staged protests to defend current legislation on abortion in towns and cities across Italy.
The confiscation of an aborted foetus by Italian police has rekindled a highly charged debate over abortion in Catholic Italy before April's snap elections. So has a centre-right candidate's call for a worldwide moratorium on abortion - a position supported by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Abortion on demand is legal until the end of the third month of pregnancy.
Aside from a 1981 referendum that upheld the status quo, until now there's been little sign in Italy of a public appetite for more restrictive abortion laws.
- Reuters
