LONDON: As Italy authorised the use of the abortion pill Mifepristone, the Vatican threatened to excommunicate doctors who prescribe it and women who take the pill.

After a heated four-hour session, Italy���s drug regulation agency announced its decision on Saturday following opposition from the church and Catholic politicians, including many from PM Silvio Berlusconi���s centre- Right government.

The Vatican, which has battled in the United Nations and other forums to halt acceptance of the abortion pill, reacted with dismay to the decision to approve limited use of the Mifepristone that has been available in much of the rest of Europe since the 1990s.

Archbishop Rino Fisichella, head of the Pope's thinktank on bioethical issues, the Pontifical Academy for Life, said: ���The fact of taking a pill may be less traumatic for a woman, but it does not change the substance. It is still abortion.���

He underlined that the consequences for a Catholic - automatic excommunication - were "the same as those for surgical abortion", the Guardian newspaper reported on Satuday.

Elio Sgreccia, another top official from the Academy for Life, said that women taking the pill or doctors administering it incur automatic excommunication under church law, according to media reports.