This right-ruled region is seen as a laboratory of what could happen across Italy with a Meloni victory in the next election.
Marta (not her real name) doesn’t want a second child. She is in her early thirties and already has a little girl, but her marriage is on the rocks and she also plans to move to another European country where she believes she will have more job opportunities. Sitting in one of the rooms of the Ascoli Piceno family clinic of AIED, a non-profit organization that promotes free and responsible reproduction, this young Hispanic woman tries to calm her nerves by holding her hands and bending her knees to her feet. the chair under her. “You are six weeks and four days pregnant, so the abortion pill should no longer be used. We would resort to the Karman method, which provides for the introduction of a flexible cannula and is the fastest and least annoying way for women,” explains Tiziana Antonucci, president of AIED in Ascoli Piceno, accompanied by some illustrative three-dimensional reproductions. of the female reproductive system, Marta can’t hold back tears as she listens to her.
The town of Ascoli Piceno is located in the Marche, a region of central Italy on the shores of the Adriatic Sea, ruled by the Brothers of Italy (HdI), the far-right party led by Giorgia Meloni. Together with Los Abruzos, the neighboring community, also chaired by HdI, they are seen as a kind of laboratory to monitor the policies of this formation which, although it now denies fascism, has its embryo in the movements promoted by those who be nostalgic for Benito Mussolini, the father of this totalitarian ideology. Meloni is leading the polls ahead of the September 25 elections and appears to have everything in his favor to lead the next Italian government along with his conservative bloc allies: Matteo Salvini’s League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party.
For two years now, these three political forces have taken control of Las Marcas, where they have made it more difficult than in the rest of the country to effect voluntary pregnancy termination. While in the other communities the abortion pill RU-486 can be used until the ninth week, in Las Marcas only until the seventh. In Italy, as in Spain, competences in the field of health are transferred to the regions. “The regional government has not banned its use, but with those deadlines, it has made its use impossible,” said Antonucci. “Four weeks is a menstrual cycle, then it usually takes one or two weeks for a woman to realize she is late, so between getting an appointment with the gynecologist and the week of reflection for the abortion required by law, there are hardly any instances where the RU-486 can be used. It is an obstruction of the institutions themselves when it comes to applying 194,” said the president of AIED in Ascoli Piceno, referring to the number with which the 1978 law legalizing abortion in Italy is known. It is free when performed in public hospitals.
Meloni assured last June that if he comes to power, as the polls predict, he will not abolish 194, but will promote “prevention” so that women feel they have it easier when they decide to carry their pregnancy. till the end. The HDI leader also guaranteed that Italy will not follow in the footsteps of the United States, where last June the Supreme Court, by a conservative majority, ended protection of the right to abortion. “The American reality is light years away from the Italian one. They cannot be compared,” Meloni said. Despite his words, his party’s attitude in Las Marcas shows the obstacles that can arise in the rest of the country with a central government of the conservative bloc.
“Here, the situation for women who want an abortion has deteriorated. And that we started from a position that was not good because of the high number of objecting doctors,” said Paula Amadio, member of the feminist group Rete Femminismi from Ascoli Piceno. According to the latest official data, 70% of gynecologists in the Marche have declared themselves conscientious objectors, so they refuse to participate in voluntary pregnancy interruptions. In provinces like Fermo, they are 100%, so the statistics don’t mention abortion. In several southern regions, it is also nearly impossible to comply with Law 194, as the percentage of gynecologists who object is 90%. “Women are forced to engage in health tourism, moving from one region or province to another in order to interrupt their pregnancy, which brings an economic cost and an unacceptable inconvenience at a time when they need to feel protected” , she says. Amadio.
Silvia (fictitious name), when she became pregnant with her second child, which she did not want, discovered that her lifelong gynecologist objected: «He told me that he could not help me and referred me to a family clinic, where I had a terrible had a conversation with a doctor. He threw it in my face that I, over 40 years old, had unintentionally become pregnant. Silvia faced constant bureaucratic obstacles that put her at risk of interrupting her pregnancy before the deadlines set by the law. She unsuccessfully called several hospitals in the Marche region, where she lives, and even threatened in her family office that she would take an overdose of birth control pills to induce an abortion if they didn’t help her. “They made me feel like I was a flawed person, that I was on the wrong side and they were condemning it,” Silvia recalls with pain. Finally, she found information from the AIED center in Ascoli Piceno and was able to terminate her pregnancy. Now she would like to help other women so that they don’t go through the ordeal she had to endure.
With decades of militancy behind him in favor of sex education and experience guiding and counseling women who don’t want to continue their pregnancy through all stages, Antonucci reassures Marta by telling her that whatever she decides about her possible abortion, the will be fine with her: «It is an easy and quick intervention, but it has to do with our intimacy and is based on a decision that we make alone. Whatever your sentimental partner says will be inappropriate for you. Jobs and men may be there today, but not tomorrow. Or vice versa. But a son is forever for a mother. It is not something rational, but emotional, and in which you should not underestimate what the female instinct tells you. No one accidentally breaks.
Source: La Verdad
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