M5s deputy Gilda Sportiello in the Chamber: ‘I had an abortion and I don’t feel guilty’

“I am a mother, I chose to be one, 14 years ago I chose to have an abortion. And, do you know why I say this here, in the highest place of democratic representation in this country? Because no woman who wants to have an abortion should be attacked. When I look at myself in the mirror, I don’t feel guilty or ashamed.” An intense, political and personal intervention, which went viral on social media, that of the deputy of the 5 Star Movement Gilda Sportiello in the Chamber of Deputies, signatory of an agenda to the Pnrr decree concerning the consultants to which the government has given an adverse opinion. “You had a man present this amendment and in the Chamber you had a man defend this choice”, but “it is we women who choose what we want in our lives, whether to be mothers or not to be mothers. Nobody gives it to us or gives it to us the opportunity. You should just be ashamed!”, said the deputy in the Chamber a few days after the news of the amendment to the Pnrr on pro-life movements in counseling centers.

“You dropped the mask on 194”

After her speech, the M5s parliamentarian was also called to order by the rotating presidency. Sportiello pointed the finger at “the squalid propaganda made about people’s bodies”. “Today you have definitively dropped your mask with your opposition to this act that I presented to you”, he said again. “If 194 already provided for the presence of anti-abortion associations in the clinics, can you explain to me why you had to make an amendment to remember this? Evidently it was absolutely not foreseen.”

“I had asked you”, among other things “to exclude from the third sector entities that may be involved in the services of the counseling centres, “those which, ideologically oriented, attempt to deny the protections underlying the services that the counseling centers are required to guarantee for start the procedure relating to the termination of pregnancy”, he added. There were several opposition parliamentarians who spoke on the topic, condemning the majority’s amendment on consultancies.