The comments from the opposition leader and former interior minister that some migrant women having abortions were using emergency rooms like “health ATMs” were made during a campaign rally in Rome on Sunday.
“Emergency room nurses in Milan let me know there are women who have shown up for the seventh time for an abortion,” Salvini told supporters in the Italian capital.
“It’s not for me to judge, it’s right for a woman to choose, but the emergency room can’t be the solution for uncivilised lifestyles in 2020.”
Italian medical experts declared that Salvini’s comments were inaccurate as abortions are not performed in an emergency room, except in some cases involving a miscarriage.
Gynaecologist Gisella Giampa from Rome’s Sandro Pertini hospital said Salvini was taking “rare cases” and generalising.
“Before speaking, he could inform himself, and, when one wants to be a statesman, not to take his information from one single nurse,” she said.
During the rally, Salvini also condemned “non-Italians” using emergency rooms for free, saying the “third time you have to pay”.
Salvini is renowned for his anti-migrant policies and nationalist “Italians first” rhetoric.
But his recent comments attacking women were quickly criticised by fellow politicians and the general public.
The head of Italy’s ruling Democratic Party (PD), Nicola Zingaretti, claimed Salvini’s comments showed him increasingly desperate ahead of regional elections where he hopes the League will conquer key regions.
“Salvini mouths off even more every day because he’s in trouble,” Zingaretti wrote on Facebook.
“With insults, outlandish theories and random numbers.
“Luckily, Italian emergency rooms don’t listen to his provocations.
“Get your hands off women.”
The spokesman for the Five Star Movement (M5S), which currently rules in coalition with the PD, said women were Salvini’s latest target.
“After migrants, gypsies and gays, Matteo Salvini now has it out for women who choose abortion,” Giuseppe Buompane said on Twitter.
Meanwhile, womens’ rights activists said Salvini’s comments suggested he was “very confused” about abortion.
“The morning after pill is not a method of abortion, but of contraception,” Beatrice Brignone, equality activist and secretary of the left-wing Possibile movement, wrote on Twitter.
Abortion has been legal in Italy since 1978.
Italian legislation allows women to terminate their pregnancies within three months of inception, with later-stage abortions permitted in some cases.
Women must request the procedure, then wait a week to lower the chance of their misgivings, the law states.
Despite its legality, Italian women often find it difficult to get an abortion because 70 per cent of gynaecologists whom the law allows to be “conscientious objectors” refuse to perform the procedure.
