Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister of Italy and leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy, promised dozens of times during the election campaign that she would not modify the abortion law. And that part of the commitment could be said to have been fulfilled by her. The strategy, however, is to undermine that right regulated in Law 194, approved in 1974, through different initiatives. First there were the obstacles to accessing the abortion pill, then the proposals that pregnant women should listen to the heartbeat of the fetus or consider an ultrasound before making a final decision. And now, his government has just approved a package of amendments for the receipt of post-pandemic European funds in the Chamber of Deputies that include the possibility that the so-called pro-life associations - that is, anti-abortion - can enter the clinics where women go. to get informed or to end a pregnancy.
Meloni also wants to use European funds allocated to post-pandemic recovery to finance the role of these associations during this process. Italy is the main European recipient of this money and now the government, which is having difficulties guaranteeing that fraud is not committed in the projects that receive these subsidies, intends to use some of it for its hidden fight against abortion. The text of the amendment, revealed in
Quotidiano Sanità
, guarantees regions the possibility of using post-pandemic funds dedicated to health to organize services in consultation centers that can benefit “without new or increased charges for public finances”, in addition of those already planned, “also involving third sector subjects who have qualified experience in supporting motherhood.”
The measure was approved in the Chamber of Deputies, whose president, Lorenzo Fontana (La Liga), is a declared anti-abortionist. The plan, however, still has to go through the Senate, where the majority of the right-wing government also has sufficient support; it is so aggressive that it has even caught the protagonists themselves somewhat offside: the anti-abortion associations. Before the vote, Jacopo Coghe, spokesman for Pro Vita, Italy's largest anti-abortion organization, told Italian media that the group had no intention of entering abortion clinics. However, he stated that the clinics should “return to their original function of helping women find concrete alternatives to abortion.” Coghe noted that Pro Vita's main “sphere of action” was “public awareness and political influence with national campaigns.” The group is behind controversial anti-abortion campaigns, including one in 2018 that labeled abortion “the leading cause of femicide.”
Abortion access rates in Italy are among the lowest worldwide, according to data from the Higher Institute of Health, conscientious objection is guaranteed by law - it has an average of 63% throughout Italy, according to 2021 data from the Institute of Health - and in some regions non-objecting doctors are not found in public facilities, as shown by the map of Laiga (a voluntary association that operates in support of the freedom of choice to resort to abortion). It happens especially in places governed by Brothers of Italy, such as the Marche region, which has become a laboratory for their social policies. In this region, access to the abortion pill is more restricted than in the rest.
The PD's spokesman in the Senate, Francesco Boccia, criticized the measure. “As it always does, almost secretly, by presenting amendments to the PNRR decree [post-pandemic aid], the right is trying to deal another blow to women's freedom in matters of reproduction and abortion.” “The amendment presented establishes that the regions can involve anti-abortion associations in the clinics. "Instead of guaranteeing women services, employment and economic stability, the government chooses to attack freedom of choice and weaken, with the introduction of figures belonging to associations without specific powers, places that are fundamental for women's health," he insisted.
Upon his arrival at the Chigi Palace, 19 months ago, Meloni established a Family Ministry to which he added the tagline “and birth”. The decision was not coincidental and it placed Eugenia Rocella, a fervent anti-abortionist, daughter, paradoxically, of one of the founders of the Radical Party (which built its ideology around the right to abortion). Rocella is a declared enemy of the living will, of in vitro fertilization with egg donation, of the Ru-486 abortion pill, of homosexual families, of LGTBI rights, of the express divorce law or of euthanasia.
Rocella, today an exponent of the Catholic fundamentalist wing of anti-abortion associations, faces all these questions with the fever of the convert. In the seventies she was a great feminist of the women's liberation movement and she signed a pamphlet in favor of abortion. But in the eighties she distanced herself from that and assured that it led "to the destruction of the individual."
The right and the associations themselves argue that Law 194 already provided for in its article 2 the participation of associations, NGOs and volunteers in said processes. However, the standard referred to “the voluntary collaboration of appropriate grassroots social formations and voluntary associations, which can also help in cases of difficult motherhood after birth.” The general secretary of the PD, Elly Schlien, announced that her party will strongly oppose this measure. “We are witnessing a strong attack on women's freedom to choose about their own bodies. We expected it from this right that, wherever it governs, tries to undermine the implementation of Law 194 and restrict the right of women seeking access to a voluntary interruption of pregnancy.”
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