ROME -- Spain’s Equality minister, Ana Redondo, has criticised Giorgia Meloni’s government after the Italian parliament passed a measure allowing anti-abortion activists to enter abortion consultation clinics. 

  Redondo took to ‘X’ to express her dissent: “Allowing organised pressure against women who want to terminate a pregnancy is undermining a right recognised by law. It is the strategy of the extreme right: to threaten to take away rights, to curb equality between women and men.”

  Meloni responded to Redondo’s comments, “Several times I have listened to foreign ministers who talk about domestic issues without knowing the facts. Normally when you are ignorant, you must, at least, have the good grace of not giving lessons.” 

  Eugenia Roccella, Italy’s Family minister, supported Meloni, saying “I suggest that the representatives of other countries base their opinions on reading the texts and not on the propaganda from the Italian left, who declare themselves the champion of the 194 law but do not know its contents or pretends not to know it, since it contests an amendment that merely reproduces to the letter an article of the law on abortion for 46 years”. 

  Abortion was legalised in Italy in 1978, under Law 194. Whilst this law has been in practice for around 45 years, data from the health ministry in 2021 shows that 63 per cent of gynaecologists refuse to perform the procedure due to moral or ethical reasons.

  During the last days of electoral campaigning in 2022, Meloni said “I will not cancel the 194 and I will not change the 194”. Though it would be unpopular for the Prime Minister to repeal the law entirely, with Law 194 widely considered a law of civilisation, she will want to respond to the anti-abortion associations which supported her electoral campaign. 

  Jacopo Coghe, a spokesperson for the pro-life group  Provita e Famiglia Onlus, commented “The amendment to the PNRR follows the provisions of article 2 of law 194.” With a statement on their website reading: “We are not entering the clinics, but thousands of women are forced to abort due to poverty and loneliness.”

lw