The Vatican has attacked Italy's drug regulation agency after it approved the use of the abortion pill RU486.

RU486 is a pill that allows the patient to have a chemically induced abortion instead of a surgical procedure within the first seven weeks of pregnancy.

It has been available in much of Europe since the 1990s.

The Italian Pharmaceuticals Agency (AIFA) has ruled that the abortion pill cannot be sold in pharmacies, but it can be administered by doctors.

The agency announced its decision late on Thursday (local time) after a long meeting during which it was lobbied intensely by the church and Catholic politicians, including many from President Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right government.

The Vatican says it would excommunicate doctors and nurses who prescribed the drug and any patients who used it.

A Vatican spokesman says taking a pill may be less traumatic for a woman, but it does not change the face that it is still abortion.

Since 1978 abortion has been legal in Italy on demand in the first 90 days of pregnancy and until the 24th week, if the life of the mother is at risk or the foetus is malformed.

By law, all abortions must take place in a hospital.

Developed in the early 1980s in France, mifepristone or RU-486 is approved as a prescription drug in the United States and almost all the European Union, except some of the most Catholic countries like Portugal, Ireland and hitherto Italy.

Its supporters in Italy say there is no contradiction with current Italian law.

But critics say that despite the AIFA stipulating that the pill could only be given in hospital in accordance with the law, some women were bound to abort at home without medical assistance.

- ABC/Reuters: Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/01/2643025.htm?section=justin