by Editorial Staff

The right-wing offensive against abortion starts from Verona

Romeo and Juliet probably never existed, but every year thousands of tourists from all over the world come to Verona, the city where William Shakespeare's play is set, to visit Juliet's house and her tomb, leave a love note in the courtyard of the medieval building or touch the statue depicting the protagonist of one of the most tragic love stories in world literature.
But over the last year Juliet was not the only female literary character to be evoked along the streets of the city and inside the ancient buildings; the protagonists of the The Handmaid's Tale, the novel by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, which was also made into a film and a television series.
Il 4 October, while the city's municipal council approved a motion against abortion presented by the Northern League councilor Alberto Zelger, some activists of the feminist movement Not one less they followed the session in silence wearing red cloaks and white bonnets just like the handmaids in Atwood's dystopian novel, has become the symbol of women's struggle throughout the world against the exploitation of their bodies and attempts to limit their self-determination.
“We needed to protest in silence, but we couldn't carry signs otherwise they would have kicked us out of the city council meeting", explain Laura Sebastio and Francesca Milan of the Non una di meno group from Verona. I meet them in a bar a few meters from Juliet's house, in a basement room that became a meeting point for the city's opposition, more than once targeted by local neo-fascist groups.
The handmaids' protest
“We were inspired by protests that had taken place in some American states, like Texas against similar measures", they continue. With their disguise, the activists managed to draw the attention of the national press to what was happening in Verona, but the motion against abortion was approved anyway 21 you vote in favor and you are against, with the support even of the leader of the Democratic Party, Carla Padovani.
“Although for the moment in the city the pregnancy termination service works quite well, despite a conscientious objection rate of around 70 percent, we fear that in the future organizations pro-life Catholic women will try to enter the citizen clinics", explains Maria Genneth, gynecologist and president ofItalian Association for Demographic Education (Aied) of Verona. His organization she was excluded from the municipal family council at the behest of the mayor and only after the appeal to the regional administrative court was she readmitted to participate.
So in fortieth anniversary of the law 194 of the 1978 which decriminalized the termination of pregnancy in Italy, in Verona the city council approved a measure "for the prevention of abortion and support for motherhood" and proclaimed itself a "pro-life city". He also allocated "substantial funding" for Catholic anti-abortion organizations such as Gemma, Chiara and Secret Cradle, which deal with financially supporting women to convince them to give up an already planned pregnancy interruption.
In reality, according to data from the Ministry of Health in Italy, since the law was passed 194, voluntary terminations of pregnancy are more than halved. But the Italian anti-abortionists, very linked to the environments of Catholic traditionalism, they argue that the legalization of abortion is one of the causes of the country's low birth rate.
For his part, the Northern League member Alberto Zelger, first signatory of the motion and already supporter in July of 2014 of a crusade "in defense of the natural family" against homosexual unions, he stated during an interview with Radio24 that “abortion is not a right, it is an abominable crime. My example is Putin's Russia, where abortions have dropped from four million a year to two with maternity subsidies. If only the law on abortion was up to me, the 194, it shouldn't exist. I am against abortion, entirely in line with the position of Minister Fontana. It means killing a baby in its mother's womb.".
The minister of the family Lorenzo Fontana, 38 years, veronese, vicesegretario della Lega e amico personale del leader del partito Matteo Salvini (che gli ha fatto anche da testimone alle nozze) nella sua prima intervista da ministro al Corriere della Sera ha dichiarato che una delle priorità del suo mandato è l’aumento della natalità in Italia e il contrasto all’aborto. “Voglio intervenire per potenziare i consultori così da cercare di dissuadere le donne dall’abortire. Sono cattolico, non lo nascondo. Ed è per questo che credo e dico anche che la famiglia sia quella naturale, dove un bambino deve avere una mamma e un papà”, ha chiarito Fontana, negando che si possano chiamare famiglie le unioni tra persone dello stesso sesso.
Al tema, il ministro ha dedicato anche un libro: The empty cradle of civilization. At the origin of the crisis (2018), also presented in the context of Festival for life, a conference that took place in Verona on 17 e 18 February 2018 with the patronage of the city administration. The introduction to Fontana's book, written together with the Catholic banker Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, it was curated by the leader of the League Matteo Salvini. At the Festival for Life, which took place in one of the most important buildings in the city, International anti-abortion figures such as the Frenchman Xavier Dor also participated, pediatrician, president of the Catholic association SOS Tout-petits, e Bernard Gappmaier, doctor and activist pro-life Austrian, President of the European Federation of Doctors for the Protection of Life.
In the book Fontana expresses his positions against abortion very clearly, citing data released by the movements pro-life: “Dal 1978 abortion today (link) it prevented the birth of six million Italian children, also due to a certain political culture, dear to the left, which demonizes conscientious objection and prefers to eradicate life rather than act on the counseling system and, more generally, on the prevention of abortion. The American Institute of Family Policies has calculated that the number of abortions in European countries (so-called) ‘unita’, 1.207.464, equivalent to the deficit in the European birth rate”. In the book the minister disseminates data from movements and institutes linked to ultra-conservative Catholic circles, as if they were the product of independent studies.
“It is also worth noting the profile of the co-author of Fontana's volume, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, known for being close to Pope Benedict XVI, banker and former president of the Institute for Works of Religion (Ior), the Vatican bank", underlines the journalist and writer Valerio Renzi, author of the book The politics of the bulldozer. Salvini's League and the new European right.
“Tedeschi belongs to the group most radically opposed to Pope Francis – continues Renzi – to the most intransigent and anti-modernist area of ​​the Catholic Church, anti-conciliar and traditionalist. Thus emerges that dual relationship that the League, always give, he had with the church: on the one hand the opposition to the values ​​of welcome and solidarity expressed by part of the Italian Catholic tradition, on the other, the reference to religion and its symbols as constitutive elements of a national tradition to be opposed to others, in particular to migrants of Muslim religion".
a laboratory
Verona's anti-abortion motion was immediately taken up by councilors from other Italian cities - including Milan, Roma, Ferrara, Trieste, Sestri Levante, Alexandria – who copied his text and they tried to get it approved by the city councils. But beyond the approval of these motions, it seems that their value is above all cultural. “All these motions are based on a strategy and an ambiguity that many politicians and even some newspapers are trying to fuel: the trick is to say you want to apply the 194 in its entirety while supporting associations linked to movements that want to repeal law 194", explained Post journalist Giulia Siviero.
For Siviero the objective of the motion is symbolic: through these measures, the far right and the traditionalist Catholic world are trying to affirm the principle that anti-abortionists want full application of the law 194, “who are for life, while the others are for death", in the sense that they would like to have Catholic groups enter the clinics to convince women not to have abortions. “As if there were only economic reasons behind the choice not to carry on with a pregnancy” and as if the legalization of abortion really had some relationship with the country's low birth rate: a connection denied by the ministry of health and by all scientific studies on the subject.
For years Verona has been a laboratory for anti-abortion policies and against homosexual unions and in the city there is a fairly explicit connection between the circles of Catholic traditionalism, those of the far right and those of the institutional right represented at the moment by Matteo Salvini's League. “Fontana is a local product”, explains Emanuele Del Medico, activist and author of the book To the far right of the father. Catholic traditionalism and the radical right.
Del Medico has long maintained that Verona is a sort of far-right laboratory, “a paradigm” he defines it. This phenomenon has ancient roots: “Historically the far right has been very strong in the city: Verona was one of the capitals of the Republic of Salò and seat of the Gestapo command during the Nazi occupation, crossed in the seventies by all the black subversion groups during the strategy of tension".
The Venetian League, which had as its main exponent the former mayor of Verona, Flavio Tosi (before he came into conflict with Salvini), it has this double relationship both with the extra-parliamentary far right and with Catholic traditionalists. For years he was one of Tosi's advisors Andrea Miglioranzi, the singer of Gesta Bellica, a Nazirock group from Verona linked to the Veneto Fronte Skinheads.
“There is a photo of the family day in Verona 2015 which shows this proximity very well”, says Del Medico. “The current minister Lorenzo Fontana parades behind the banner of the demonstration for the family together with Matteo Castagna, founder of the extremist Catholic organization Christus Rex, linked to the neo-fascist Forza Nuova party, but also together with the current mayor of Verona Federico Sboarina, to the coordinator of Forza Nuova for the north Luca Castellini and to the security councilor of the municipality of Verona Daniele Polato".
In a medium-sized city like Verona there is a lot of closeness between extra-parliamentary movements and institutional politicians. “These people also share more than just militancy, but also the passion for the same football team and they meet every Sunday in the south curve of Hellas Verona, the local football team", says Del Medico.
The Verona stadium has always been a glue for the local far right. In July of 2017 The slogans shouted by fans during a Hellas Verona party caused quite a stir: “We are a fantastic team, made in the shape of a swastika". Shortly before Luca Castellini, coordinator of Forza Nuova, from the stage he had invoked the choirs saying: “Who allowed this party, who paid for everything, whoever acted as guarantor has a name: Adolf Hitler”. For the far right of Verona, the stadium is a place of aggregation: “The point is that right now, a phenomenon that we have been denouncing for years risks taking on a national dimension with the appointment of Lorenzo Fontana as minister of the family".
The family congress
Matteo Castagna of Christus rex, for example, he recently wrote a book Catholics between Europeanism and populism, which was presented in Verona by the same city councilor as the anti-abortion motion, Alberto Zelger, but a meeting will also be dedicated to the book in Rome, to the Chamber of Deputies 26 November. Also on the day Not one less called a national demonstration in Rome against male violence against women with the slogan "Permanent agitation", Forza nuova will meet in Verona to declare the city the "Vendée of Europe" (in reference to the French region which in 1793 fu teatro di un’insurrezione conservatrice contro il governo rivoluzionario giacobino), mentre il Comitato no194 (di cui fa parte anche Fontana) sfilerà nella stessa città, per chiedere un referendum per l’abrogazione della 194.
Intanto un altro organizzatore dei family day e compagno di partito di Fontana, Simone Pillon, ha fondato il gruppo parlamentare Vita, famiglia e libertà, la cui priorità è l’abolizione dell’aborto e a cui hanno aderito 150 parlamentari di diversi schieramenti politici (tra cui Paola Binetti e Maurizio Gasparri). Infine tra le iniziative promosse dal ministro c’è il World congress of families (Wcf), il congresso mondiale delle famiglie, che si svolgerà proprio a Verona nel marzo del 2019. Il congresso delle famiglie è una piattaforma, nata negli Stati Uniti nel 1997, to promote campaigns against abortion, against pornography and against same-sex unions and to instead support the so-called "natural family".
The organization, which brings together various associations pro-life from all over the world, it finances various initiatives and a summit once a year. Its goal is to create an international network, active on these issues. The last family congress took place in Chisinau, in Moldova, in September of 2018 with the blessing of the Moldovan president, Igor Dodon, very close to Moscow. Also two conservative Russian oligarchs close to the Russian Orthodox Church, Konstantin Malofeev is Vladimir Yakunin, they have often been guests of the World Congress of Families and in the past have financed initiatives in the countries of the former Soviet Union and Western Europe on these issues.
Malofeev's partner, Alexey Komov, He is on the board of directors of the World Congress of Families, Yakunin's wife, Natalia Yakunina, he is head of theSanctity of motherhood”, one of the associations pro-life most active in Russia, who participated in the WCF in Moldova. Malofeev – one of the architects, according to the French news site Mediapart, of the rapprochement of Marine Le Pen's Front National with Russia – is always welcome in these initiatives, even though he is still on the blacklist drawn up by the European Union and the United States of people sanctioned because they are accused of having financed pro-Russian militias in eastern Ukraine.
Among the associations that are part of the WCF there are also ProVita onlus, Family generation, Defend Our Children and New Lands Committee. An investigation by Paolo Biondani and Francesca Sironi, published by the weekly L'Espresso il 16 November, shows what the role of the Novæ Terræ foundation has been in recent years. The foundation intercepted Russian funding to organize campaigns against abortion and homosexual unions around the world.
For example, in January 2014, the foundation donated 12 thousand euros to Benjamin Harnwell, a British ultra-conservative politician, founder of the Human Dignity Institute (Dhi): a Catholic organization based near the Vatican, in via delle Fornaci, in Rome and which also includes the traditionalist cardinal Raymond Leo Burke. Finally, the Dignitatis Humanae Institute is very close to Steve Bannon, the ideologue of the American far right, former advisor to President Donald Trump.
Of the Nine Lands is part of the 2015 also the Northern League senator Simone Pillon, who has recently been in the news for having proposed in August 2018 a bill “to guarantee shared custody, direct maintenance and guarantee of two-parenthood". A proposal on divorce and custody of minor children which has attracted harsh criticism from feminist associations, but also by the authorities dealing with domestic violence and the protection of minors. The law requires the intervention of a paid private mediator in the event of parental separation and the determination through a parental plan of the activities that the minor must carry out, it also requires the minor to at least pass 12 days a month with the father and abolishes the maintenance allowance for the mother.
Il 22 October, the United Nations special rapporteurs on violence and discrimination against women Dubravka Šimonović and Ivana Radačić sent a letter to the Italian government expressing concern about the provision, Furthermore, the D.i.Re. association started a petition online which collected thousands of signatures asking for the rule to be changed. Il 10 November thousands of people took to the streets throughout Italy to block the bill being discussed in the Senate.
Pillon will also participate in the XIII World Congress of Families which will take place in Verona from 29 al 31 March. During the presentation of the congress in the presence of Pillon and Salvini, as well as the American Brian Brown, the promoting associations they said “that the counter-revolution of common sense and reason will start from Verona” and that “the wind in Europe is changing”.
In Verona, anti-abortionism seems to have found a new way to penetrate Europe. Although some experts maintain that this will not be the issue that will strengthen the alliance between the parties of the European right, ahead of the elections 2019. “These themes have always been present in Umberto Bossi's Lombard League since the nineties, but I have the impression that they belong more to the old League, than to that of Salvini. This is not what Salvini's strategy will focus on.", explains Elia Rosati, professor at the University of Milan and author of several essays on the Italian far right.
“The League has always been close to the Austrian Freedom Party on these topics (Fpö) di Heinz-Christian Strache, today vice-chancellor in Austria, and with the Bavarians of the Christian Social Union (Csu). The Front National itself in France is strongly imbued with Catholic traditionalism.", continues Rosati.
However, the alliance that the League seems to give most importance to is the one with the most extreme right-wing parties such as the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) German or the Sweden Democrats.
“But countries with a Protestant tradition are more secular than the League; many of the leaders of the far right parties in Northern Europe are declared or divorced homosexuals", says Rosati. The right-wing countries of southern and eastern Europe, more linked to the Catholic church and the Orthodox church, they focus on anti-abortionism and the traditional family, but they hardly find points of contact with the right-wing parties of the Nordic countries. “Marine Le Pen also has a much more secular position than her father on these issues, because he understood that they are divisive. And I also think Matteo Salvini is more modern than the rest of the League's nomenclature, even if part of his party remains linked to more traditionalist environments such as those in Veneto".
It will be easier, according to Rosati, that a connection on these issues comes from the battle for the traditional family and against homosexual rights, that the right defines theory or ideology of gender: “Just think of Viktor Orbán's Hungary which left anti-abortionism aside, because by focusing on the battle against same-sex unions we can build another idea of ​​society and social state, introducing discriminatory elements into welfare".
SOURCE: https://www.internazionale.it/reportage/annalisa-camilli/2018/11/23/verona-estrema-destra-aborto-europa