(Bari) Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron criticized Giorgia Meloni’s opposition on Thursday to the addition of incisive wording in favor of the right to abortion in the final declaration of the G7 Summit held in Italy.
The objections of far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose country chairs the G7 this year, have particularly irritated her partners. In addition to Italy, the G7 includes the United States, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan.
President Joe Biden “was really keen that we at least have the words referring to what we had in Hiroshima on women’s health and reproductive rights” during the 2023 G7 under Japanese presidency, underlined a senior American official on condition of anonymity.
“The [final G7] communiqué will reaffirm the commitment made in Hiroshima,” scathed the official, in reference to the support expressed in Japan for “safe and legal” voluntary terminations of pregnancies (abortions).
French President Emmanuel Macron, for his part, regretted the Italian position. “France has integrated this right of women to abortion, the freedom to dispose of one’s body in its Constitution,” he recalled on the sidelines of the summit.
The services of Ms. Meloni, known for her ultraconservative positions in favor of the traditional family, denied any censorship on Wednesday, saying that negotiations were still ongoing.
Last year, in their final communiqué following their summit in Japan, the leaders expressed “great concern” about the decline in women’s rights.
They had also committed to “access to safe and legal abortion and post-abortion care.” A source close to the negotiations told AFP earlier in the day that since 2021, “there has been a mention of ‘safe access’,” but that “Meloni doesn’t want it.”
“She is isolated on this subject. But since it is the host country, the others decided not to make it a casus belli,” this source then added.
It seems that Americans did not want to leave it there, while abortion is a hot topic in the United States, where President Joe Biden has denounced the restrictions on this fundamental right imposed in the most conservative states.
Coming to power in October 2022, Giorgia Meloni, who likes to present herself as a “Christian mother”, is accused by women’s rights defenders of trying to hinder access to abortion in Italy, a country where the Catholic Church retains significant weight.
Although abortion has been authorized since 1978, access is severely limited by the very high percentage of gynecologists who invoke conscientious objection to refuse to perform them.
In April, the Italian parliament, dominated by the right and the far right, passed a measure promoted by the Meloni government allowing anti-abortion activists to be present in clinics where women seeking abortions go, provoking outrage opposition parties.
Francesco Lollobrigida, Minister of Agriculture and brother-in-law of Ms. Meloni, questioned the “opportunity” for the G7 to support abortion in his press release while Pope Francis, a fierce opponent of abortion, is invited to the summit on Friday.
Elly Schlein, head of the Democratic Party (PD, center left, main opposition party), on the contrary accused Ms. Meloni of undermining Italy’s position on the international scene by calling into question a “fundamental right”.
