Lombardy was the first to implement the law on volunteers in clinics

Francesco Ognibene

Tuesday 7 May 2024

That a state law is enforced in the Regions is not great news: it is unthinkable that a local authority could avoid implementing it. But if the law is 56/2024, which implements another slice of the Pnrr, it seems that this obvious rule no longer applies. In article 44 quinquies, a purely executive provision in fact reports the much contested rule which opens up collaboration between counseling centers and voluntary organizations committed to supporting maternity. And when – on Tuesday 7 May – it became clear that the Lombardy Region, the first in Italy, would take the necessary measures to apply it, the fault line of the controversy that has been dragging on for weeks reopened, regardless of the service that many third sector associations provide from years, rooted and appreciated everywhere by institutions, to help women in difficulty due to an unexpected pregnancy. «The Lombardy Region has always implemented the provisions of law 194 and has always collaborated with the third sector and intends to make use of all the possibilities that the law makes available to combat the birth rate»: thus the undersecretary with responsibility for Autonomy and Relations with the Regional Council Mauro Piazza explained the council’s intent by responding in a question time to the Civic Pact which asked how the Lombardy Region intended to apply law 194/78 in light of the new regulation on the Pnrr. «The initiatives of the Lombardy Region – added Piazza – can be integrated with the new opportunities granted by the recently applied legislation». The PD group leader Pierfrancesco Majorino and the dem councilor Paola Bocci instead speak of a “serious decision”: “We make ourselves available to collect and investigate reports on the failure to apply 194 in our Region and reports of interference in the lives of women which may be caused by neo-obscurantists”. No less harsh is the controversy of Luca Paladini (Civic Pact) who defines the “presence of pro-life militants within counseling centers as “a danger”, fearing that these “are no longer places where a woman is cared for and protected but where it is judged.”