«Fourteen years ago I chose to have an abortion. Today I am a mother, I chose to be a mother.” The deputy of the 5 Star Movement Gilda Sportiello thus began her speech yesterday in Montecitorio on the rule of the Pnrr decree which opens the clinics to pro-life associations. “It was important to say it out loud, in parliament, so that no woman in the same situation should be ashamed,” she added. Last June, the images of Sportiello breastfeeding her baby in the Chamber ended up in all the newspapers. Yesterday, after the end of her speech, someone shouted at her: “And are you coming to tell us about it in court?”. While FdI deputy Manlio Messina recommended “a round of chamomile”.
Right and shame, secrecy and taboo
Sportiello speaks today in an interview with The print: «I thought about how a woman might feel right now who is faced with the decision to ask for an abortion, wants to go to a clinic, is scared and doesn’t know what to expect. What can you feel when faced with a government that seems to be your enemy, while the right to abortion is in fact being questioned? I felt the need to fight the narrative according to which those who make this choice should be ashamed, should keep it secret, as if it were a taboo. Talking about it in the Chamber was important, necessary. And it is like this, because many women who have felt represented are writing to me.” The deputy says that it is not true that the rule serves to fully apply law 194: «We have been hearing this falsehood repeated for days. Logic is enough: if the law on abortion already provided for it, why write a new rule within a decree which is also called Pnrr? Evidently the text does not concern the pro-life volunteers for whom they want to open the door on the right. As also demonstrated by the decision to vote against my agenda.”
Convince women to have abortions
The deputy adds that the M5s asked to «prevent the ideologically oriented ones from being among the “associations in support of maternity” cited by their amendment in the clinics, which do not protect the rights of those who want to initiate an interruption of pregnancy. They rejected it. And this clearly says that they really want anti-abortionists in the facilities. Nowhere in 194 does it say that women must be persuaded not to have abortions.” Finally, he explains why he proposed a law to include the right to abortion in the Constitution: «In the resolution approved a few days ago by the European Parliament on the recognition of abortion as a fundamental right, there is a passage in which it is said that Italy it is a country where this right is experiencing erosion. It is a process that was already underway before this amendment.”
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Tags: M5s deputy talked abortion Chamber important woman ashamed
