WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, FAI - Umanita Nova: HomeFeatured Abortion: free to choose. (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 September 28th International Day for Safe and Free Abortion. A date that

once again represents a slap in the face for the diverse reactionary
world and beyond. If in fact the day against violence against women is
transversally welcomed by any political sector, even by the Pope and the
right, because what is celebrated is the representation of the woman as
a victim who suffers, the day of abortion is a toad difficult to digest
and not only by all those who are openly against abortion, but also by
those who, steeped in sexist culture, have a great difficulty in
recognizing the self-determination of women. Because this is what it is
about. Being able to abort freely means freely deciding on one's own
body, managing one's sexuality, escaping the reproductive destiny
assigned to women as the only natural and possible horizon.

A woman who suffers violence falls within the patriarchal and sexist
scenario. A woman who decides not to be a mother does not belong, she
removes her body from domination, from control, she commits a subversive
act.

The many squares for free abortion have reached September 28 thanks to
the work of groups, collectives and activists, in the total silence of
the official media. Throughout the month of November, however, the most
unlikely subjects will impose on us, through massive advertising
campaigns, images of women full of bruises and plasters that should
discourage violence, but which in reality communicate the reassuring
image of the state of things, showing who commands and who suffers,
reiterating that the power to stop or not stop violence lies in the
hands, fists and knives of men, the only ones who can decide.

Yet we know well that the issues are closely linked, that denying the
freedom to abort represents one of the many forms of gender violence,
because the denial of access to abortion, the imposition of the
reproductive role, is one of the ways in which control and domination
over bodies is exercised, and therefore it is violence. We know this and
we reaffirm it publicly.

In Italy, the freedom to abort does not exist. We have often recalled
how law 194 that regulates the voluntary interruption of pregnancy,
dating back to 1978, was the result of a political compromise with
clerical and reactionary sectors that gave the perverse mechanism of
conscientious objection to those who wanted to maintain abortion, a path
with sometimes inaccessible obstacles, weakening the social push that
did not ask for regulation, but rather for decriminalization that would
put an end to clandestine abortion. Since then, the difficulty in
clearly positioning oneself on the ground of the defense of abortion,
that is, of a health practice, has never disappeared and even today
there is an enormous difficulty, even on the "left", in addressing the
issue. It is easier to talk about euthanasia rather than abortion; and
on the other hand, euthanasia is a free choice that also belongs to men,
therefore more acceptable, abortion is not.

In the face of this historical limit, this manufacturing defect and the
ongoing lack of political will, we have a sieve-like law. In Italy the
average of conscientious objection is around 70%, but in some regions it
reaches 90%, in the Marche almost 100%, and there are 11 regions in
which there is at least one hospital with 100% of objectors. In fact, a
service that is differently accessible in various areas of Italy, in
many completely denied: it is as if, for access to the health practice
of abortion, the famous differentiated autonomy had already been a
reality for a good forty-six years. Not to mention the constant
aggression to free choice even where access to abortion is more or less
there, but is hindered by judgment, social condemnation, and guilt. And
the obstacles are not only moral, but take on violent concreteness, a
concreteness that in fact limits accessibility to abortion. In addition
to the frightening spread of conscientious objection among gynecologists
and medical support staff, let us not forget the shameful obligation of
the week of reconsideration/discouragement; the limits imposed on
migrant women with temporary visas, who are only entitled to some
essential health services among which abortion would not be included,
unless by enforcing an old ruling that has never been generally
accepted; the boycott of medical abortion and its limitation (in Italy
only) to 9 weeks instead of 12 as recognized by the WHO.

In this scenario of inaccessibility, the recrudescence determined by the
recent measures of the fascists in government fits in, well received by
a classist, sexist and exclusionary health system. And so here is the
activation of the "listening room" at the S. Anna hospital in Turin,
here is the funding for the presence of anti-abortion associations in
counseling centers, here is the spread of the vexatious and useless
practice of imposing the listening of the fetal heartbeat on women who
undergo a simple ultrasound, here are the proposed laws for the
recognition of legal personality to the fetus, here is the cancellation
of any reference to the protection of abortion from the final document
of the G7 last June, a meeting that saw the extraordinary and not
accidental participation of the Pope.

A real war on self-determination accompanied and supported by a powerful
birth campaign, all based on the imposition of the reproductive role for
women, on the coercion of motherhood, on the blaming of those who choose
not to be mothers, on the demonization and criminalization of abortion.
And the weight of the relationship between abortion and demographic
decline should be fully grasped, which the most reactionary sectors
continually reiterate, and which sinisterly recalls the definition that
abortion had in the penal code before decriminalization, when it was
classified as a "crime against health and the integrity of the lineage".

In these bleak and oppressive scenarios, transfeminist squares represent
a cry for freedom, as are the solidarity practices of self-help, of
accompaniment to abortion, of monitoring accessibility to health
services, of claiming and occupying counseling centers. It is important
to recognize how much these battles must be supported, shared and
practiced. It is important to reject, together with the policies of
poverty, war and repression, also the policies of domination over bodies
that claim to interfere with our lives and our choices. This is why we
practice and support the struggles for free, safe and free abortion.

P.N.

https://umanitanova.org/aborto-libere-di-scegliere/
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