The move, designed to establish his Government’s pro-life credentials, makes abortion an election issue in Italy for the first time in 25 years.

Explaining the new curbs, Francesco Storace, the Health Minister, said that imports of the abortion drug Mifepristone, which is not licensed in Italy, had “rocketed” in the past two years. “From now on doctors will have to justify every individual request on precise clinical and epidemiological grounds,” he said. “All we want is to safeguard women’s health. There are people out there trying to exploit them.”

The pill, also known as RU486, blocks the action of the hormone progesterone, needed to sustain a pregnancy. It is used in 30 countries, including Britain.

Signor Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, claims that his centre-right coalition, represents “family values”. He has vowed never to sanction “civil unions” between homosexuals, a stand applauded by the Vatican.

Romano Prodi, the leader of the Centre Left, which is ahead in the opinion polls, has said that he would consider legal recognition for gay unions and unmarried heterosexual partners without allowing gay marriage.

The Right said that if Signor Prodi returned to power “there will be a slide towards Zapatero-style politics”, referring to the leftwing José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister.

Opinion polls show the Centre Left lead narrowing from 6 to 4.5 points under a media barrage by Signor Berlusconi, who is accused by the Left of appearing almost nightly on television chat and variety shows.

Last weekend he told a TV preacher that he would abstain from sex until after the election to honour “the Catholic ideal of chastity”. Corriere della Sera said that at 69 the twice-married Signor Berlusconi “has apparently become a Christian traditionalist overnight”.

The newspaper noted that the pledge followed an interview in which, when asked if he had been faithful to his wives, he said: “Yes, frequently.”

Last week Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the head of the Italian Bishops Conference and a close aide to Pope Benedict XVI, said that voters should “take into account” issues such as abortion and gay unions.

Abortion was legalised in Italy in 1978. The abortion pill RU486 became available recently in some parts of Italy on an experimental basis.

Last month, 50,000 women marched in Milan vowing to keep Italy’s abortion law. The Berlusconi Government has promised, if re-elected, to place “pro-life activists” in state-funded abortion advice centres.

The Pope urged doctors not to give women the abortion pill last month and said that it was wrong to give legal recognition to gay unions.

But the Centre Right’s alignment with the Vatican could backfire. An opinion poll of self-professed Italian Catholics by the Eurispes polling organisation suggested that 70 per cent favoured “civil unions” and 65 per cent favoured retaining liberal laws on abortion.

MORNING AFTER

• Mifepristone can be used in the termination of pregnancies up to 64 days after conception. It was developed in France in 1980 and has since been licensed for use in France, Britain and the US, but it is not approved in Italy. Under a 1997 law, Italian health authorities can import drugs licensed in other EU countries.

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