The right of the strongest

There's a typically Italian kerfuffle going on here at the moment about the authorisation of Ru486, the pill that induces abortion. It's used pretty much everywhere in the developed world, but Italy's taken its time about saying yes, for obvious reasons. It's a political issue here (yawn), which is what women tend to become when their bodies,and their right to make decisions about them, are involved. I'd call the issue ideological but that gives too much weight to the knee-jerkiness of most of the reactions here, in the world of opinion-makers, inside and outside the Vatican, if such a space as 'outside the Vatican' exists in Italy in anything but the most virtual sense (i.e blogs). Because it isn't ideological at all; it's a question of who swings what, and where. It's party lines and party funding and who gives a flying fuck about individual women and their complicated individual lives?

For some people, for example, doctors and cardinals and their various acolytes and dependents (politicians), the use of the pill 'banalizes' abortion. At this point, it might not be a bad idea to cut the crap and introduce the proviso that legal abortion is available as long as it's accompanied by a public flogging and a rather severe haircut. That way the woman won't regard it as 'banal', and will presumably think twice before having sex. Because naturally, before having sex, she'll take into account the fact that she might be able to avoid a surgical procedure and replace it with a slightly less invasive sort of medication. Good God, who wouldn't risk it, knowing that? I'm surprised Papi Silvio doesn't slip a pill into the bustarella he gives the whores he entertains in his many villas. Banal, schmanal, as long as she doesn't do a paternity suit. The chance, as they say, would be a fine thing, despite Berlusconi's latest crack that he may not be a saint, but he fucks like a god. (Yes, this is the Italian premier speaking...)

But my favourite is the comment made by Bagnasco. He's the cardinal who took over from God's ferret a couple of years ago in a PR attempt to soften the rigour of the Prada-clad One, who is currently nursing his over-stressed wrist somewhere comfortable. In the photograph above, he's the one in the red sash sucking up to the boss, in white. They're quite a picture, surounded by all that sombre but not unsexy black. These colours wouldn't matter, but they have a hierarchical significance, rather like judo. And that's what makes me laugh about Bagnasco. His reaction to the decision to allow the use of the pill was to express his bitterness that it endorsed 'the right of the strongest'. Coming from a democrat this just might have had some weight. It's certainly true that a pregnant woman is 'stronger' than a foetus, if only because she's a reasoning autonomous being and not a mere cluster of cells. Coming from a man at the highest ranks of a rigidly hierarchical structure that regards all women within its bounds as lesser beings, deprived of decision-making power and doctrinal choice, a structure that will do all it can to reduce women outside its bounds, who don't even share its faith, to the same level, as unspeaking, unquestioning vessels of God's word and man's seed, it's no longer laughable. It's obscene.

Fright

It's standard practice in the run-up to elections for opposition leaders to accuse the government of practically anything short of first degree homicide (pace Andreotti), knowing full well that retaliation only makes the retaliator look pathetic. It's an old playground trick, and politicians know full well that mud doesn't need to contain a grain of truth to stick. But trust Berlusconi to come up with a new twist on the old technique. Interviewed by Tempi, he announced that the Prodi government had 'frightened people with its fight against tax evasion.' This might well be the first true thing the man has said, and is likely to say, in the entire campaign, which began only minutes after the last general elections in April 2006. But to accuse a government of 'frightening' wrongdoers in a bid to become, once again, prime minister of one of the world's most powerful countries, despite all his efforts during his previous term, surely takes the biscuit for sheer bare-facedness. He might as well have accused it of scaring men by increasing women's rights (except that it hasn't) or heterosexuals by recognising civil unions (idem).

And talking about women's rights, the Great Buffoon also pledged support to the suggestion of his tubby chum, opinionista Giuliano Ferrara, that an international moratorium be called on abortion, or 'murdering babies', as it's sometimes known. This has as much chance of passing as a moratorium on farting in private, but it's an easy way to say thank you forthe support he's already getting from the Vatican rag, Avvenire. And the latest news is that Ferrara, who has no children, is going to be running as a pro-life candidate. Well, here's photographic proof that he can do it. Run, that is.

Abortion

An awful lot of men -old men, obese men, childless men, opinionated men - are talking about abortion in Italy right now. I don't think it's any of their business, and I don't think it's any of mine.

Pro-life (as in, er, death)

Amnesty International's decision to endorse the decriminalisation of abortion when the woman's life is at stake or the foetus is the product of sexual violence has been attacked by religious fundamentalists, including, naturally, the gaggle of officially celibate old men in the Vatican. Maybe they should all go and live in the fabulously roman catholic Nicaragua, where a blanket ban on abortion has led to the deaths of at least 82 women since its introduction. You can find out more about this pernicious life-hating law and its effects here, in an article from today's Guardian. It starts like this:

María de Jesús González was a practical woman. A very poor single mother, the 28-year-old's home was a shack on a mountain near the town of Ocotal in Nicaragua. She made the best of it. The shack was spotless, the children scrubbed. She earned money by washing clothes in the river and making and selling tortillas.
That wasn't quite enough to feed her four young children and her elderly mother, so every few months González caught a bus to Managua, the capital, and slaved for a week washing and ironing clothes. The pay was three times better, about £2.60 a day, and by staying with two aunts she cut her costs. She would return to her hamlet with a little nest-egg in her purse. She bought herself one treat - a pair of red shoes - but she would leave them with her family in Managua, as they were no good on the mountain trails she had to go up to get home.

No abortion isn't the only thing the sex-obsessed geriatrics in the Vatican would like about Nicaragua. It's also the only country in Latin America with a law that prohibits gay sex. Article 204 of the Constitution imposes sentences of up to three years for sodomy. But you don't have to buttfuck to get into trouble; all you need to do is say you're gay and happy and you can be arrested. Oddly enough, according to Nicaraguan activist, Don Pato:

Article 204 is used as a tool to institutionalize child abuse where the many poor children and parents in this country dare not accuse the perpetrator. To accuse anyone a priest, teacher or not so wealthy land owners of male on male contact can equate to justifiable homicide in this place, and the accusing person can end up jail for libel. Nicaragua has the highest rate of underage sex abuse anywhere in Latin America.

Two laws, in other words, that strike directly at the poorest and most defenceless. As Tony Blair so famously said: I wonder what Jesus would have done.