The Day After. The Abortion in Italy and the On-Going Conflict

Abstract

Abstract: For the women’s movement – in particular for those groups that had not seen the law as a necessary path towards the affirmation of a right of freedom, as well as for those who believed in the juridical path, but were disappointed by the result – that May 23rd, 1978 (the day after), represents certainly a hard time. The research goes through the salient moments of the debate around the 194/1978 law, taking into consideration that, even today, a fundamental question remains unresolved, in order to fulfil the concept of “citizenship” for women: the recognition of the freedom to decide on their own body, a right that is still precarious, continually threatened and everywhere, at all latitudes and in all cultures, subject to dangerous regressions. The hypothesis is that, in many countries, anti-abortion activism continues in waves to find its strength within a definition of women as a weaker subject. The vision of abortion as a social drama and the portrait of women as victims, has always been substantially accepted in every time and in every part of the world, by the left as well as by the right and of course by a lot of women. But the price to pay was of leave out others, all “others”. An unresolved issue that makes evident and every day necessary, even among women, to question on this issue again and again.

Keywords: body, right, conflict, feminism.