Abortion, what is “reputational damage”?

We are used to quantifying, adding, subtracting. It is clear to everyone what the fiscal damage is, for example. But the reputation, of a person or of a state, is imponderable. Giorgia Meloni however, she knows well how much it matters and, after the Big 7 summit in Puglia, she is certain that she has strengthened Italy’s reputation. It’s a shame you forget the discussion on abortion, which you classified as an artificial controversy.

But having abolished the right to legal and safe abortion from the conclusions of the G7 is “reputational damage” to Italy.

The conservative ideology of the right has nothing to do with it, nor the moral question – to each his own choices -, this is about remembering and respecting Italian history. In a Catholic country like Italy – where the interference of the Church in the past was a real invasion of the secular state – law 194 of 1978 was approved in the name of respect for women’s health, self-determination in fact of motherhood, of free female sexuality. In those times of “mothers” and “golden spoons”, of prison, who felt like preventing women from legally resorting to abortion? It was our step towards civilization. They were the battles of women, Emma Bonino arrested outside the polling station in Brà for having reported herself after the abortion, the counseling centers, the powerful campaign for contraception. Over the decades, abortions in Italy have decreased, not increased. And Meloni, who would like to accredit his government’s policy as that of a new Italian Renaissance, sees fit to delete the words “right to legal and safe abortion”. What is this if not “reputational damage”? To the country, to the effort, to the freedom of those who led us to conquer the spaces of modernity and civilization, of law and dignity. Reputation is imponderable, but damage carries great weight. Meloni on abortion has done damage to the reputation of Italy, which has transformed itself into the leader of obscurantism.