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Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government maintains that the amendment doesn’t really change anything, just clarifies aspects of the 1978 Law 194 legalizing abortion — by allowing the activists into the centers where they weren’t permitted before.
“This was already included in the letter of the law, which we haven’t touched,” said Raffaele Nevi, a lawmaker with the prime minister’s coalition. “That’s the whole reason it got so easily approved: It changes nothing. … It’s just about applying it.”
Italy’s opposition says the latest national amendment has dealt women’s rights a “heavy” blow, noting how some regions, including Umbria and Marche, have already restricted access to the abortion pill.
“The right keeps on showing its nostalgic nature and its patriarchal and obscurantist vision, seeking every time to erode women’s rights,” said Silvia Roggiani, an opposition lawmaker with the center left Partito Democratico. “While other countries progress in the protection of gender rights, it’s only shameful that Italy should be taking steps back.”
There has been a renewed focus on the issue of abortion in Europe following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, resulting in restrictions to abortion access in many parts of the country.
In February, France became the first country in the world to enshrine abortion rights in its constitution, while the European Parliament voted last week in favor of including access to abortion in its Charter of Fundamental Rights. The resolution is nonbinding, but has been welcomed by abortion rights groups nonetheless.
Meloni, who became prime minister in 2022, has promised to not change Italy’s abortion legislation, but finding a facility providing safe abortions is becoming increasingly difficult.
Italy legalized abortion in 1978, when the country was still staunchly Catholic, and under the law women are able to seek a termination in the first 90 days of pregnancy. After that an abortion can only be performed if there is a risk to the woman’s life or there are serious issues with the fetus.
Doctors can refuse to perform an abortion for reasons of conscience, and according to 2021 Italian Health Ministry data, more than 60 percent of gynecologists won’t carry out the procedure.
Italy’s biggest antiabortion organization, Pro Vita e Famiglia (Pro-Life and Family), is among the groups that would be allowed to enter consultation clinics under the amendment. The groups have called for doctors who provide abortions to first have their patient see the fetus and then have them hear its heartbeat before carrying out the procedure.
The organization has links to the U.S. antiabortion organization Heartbeat International, from which it has received nearly $100,000 in funding since 2014.
Jacopo Coghe, a spokesperson for Pro Vita, said that while the group has no intention of entering abortion consultation clinics, they should “return to their original function of helping women find concrete alternatives to abortion.”
While the amendment must still be approved by the Senate, there is little hope among opposition lawmakers that the measure can be halted.
“[The amendment] is already in, it’s a done deal,” Roggiani told The Post. “I don’t think it can be stopped.”
Brady reported from Berlin.
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