The Pnrr decree passes with the vote of confidence, including the rule that opens the doors of the clinics to “third sector subjects who have experience in the sector of maternity support”, in short to the anti-abortion militants of the Pro-Life movements. What they will do within those structures was clarified by Maria Rachele Ruiu, spokesperson for the movement, in a recent note on the need to represent to women “the risks that abortion entails for physical and mental health“. In detail: «increase in the risk of breast cancer by 44% for those who undergo one induced abortion up to 89% for those who undergo three; pelvic and genital infections, hemorrhages, perforations and scarring, subsequent spontaneous abortions, premature births in the case of other pregnancies (…) depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and self-harming behavior up to suicide”.
It is not known exactly from which studies this frightening list of misfortunes comes. However, the consequence of the newly approved law is clear: every woman who enters a counseling center could be exposed to terrifying advice, coming not from doctors, specialists, scientists, but from people without any specific requirements beyond a generic “experience in supporting maternity”. The vulnerability to law 194 is clear. The mistake made by the majority is equally so. To please minority sectors of the Catholic world, the war is reopened on women’s bodies and it is done in the place where they are most exposed, fragile, sometimes confused: within structures where no type of militancy should enter but only the attentive gaze of psychologists, social workers and gynecologists. It is up to them to help women balance the pros and cons of an interruption of pregnancy, it is their task to help make a free and informed choice. Not even the old DC, the super-Catholic DC of Giulio Andreotti who countersigned Law 194, ignoring the extremist calls to resign, had ever imagined allowing private individuals to meddle in the path carefully prescribed by the law. On the contrary, it created a barrier against the forces that contested the decision to reserve the intervention to public structures, absolutely prohibiting private individuals from dealing with abortion in any way. Many do not remember it, but there were two referendums in 1981: that of the Movement for Life which asked for the repeal of 194 and that of the Radicals which abolished the State’s “exclusivity” on Ivg interventions. They were both rejected. The law remained as it is. With the wise prediction of a single intervention by associations: in support of difficult motherhood “after birth” (and not before the choice).
Among other things, the 194, as clearly shown by the annual parliamentary reports, is indisputable in terms of results. The scourge of clandestine abortions has been stamped out. Italy is happily at the bottom of the list of abortion rates, with increasingly low numbers year after year. So why upset this balance, reopen one of the few “ethical questions” that have been closed, for decades now, to the satisfaction of almost everyone? The political calculation is evident. Maria Rachele Raiu will be among the guests of honor at the three-day event in breaking latest news which will launch the FdI campaign for the European Championships next weekend. Her presence confirms the privileged dialogue of the right with the Pro-Life groups, which was once the prerogative of Simone Pillon-style Salvinism. And yet go and see if this flag-stealer will bring electoral advantages: at the moment it mainly ensures internal controversies and European suspicions.