Indeed, the church has been a moving force behind the new antiabortion movement in Spain and Italy. The Isadora clinic is decorated with posters showing a panorama of Catholic cardinals in red cassocks and the slogan, "Don't let them decide for you."
The influence of the church in Italy, home to the Vatican and the pope, is especially strong.
Even among leftist parties, there is discord over strong abortion-rights legislation -- exacerbated when the abortion issue was pushed to the center of election-season debate by an incident in Naples in February.
Police, acting on an anonymous tip that a "murder" was being committed at a hospital there, interrogated a woman shortly after she terminated her pregnancy.
According to the hospital, she was aborting at 21 weeks after serious abnormalities were discovered with the fetus. Though she was within the legal limit, police confiscated the fetus.
"They bombarded me with questions," the woman, identified in the Italian press as Silvana, told the daily La Repubblica. "They gave me the third degree: What had happened, why did I have an abortion, who was the father? They even asked me if I paid the doctors."
The incident angered many Italians but also gave fodder to the political right, which has seized on the issue and its power to divide the left. With former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at the helm, the center-right is leading in polls for the upcoming national elections.
Berlusconi has said he personally does not believe abortion should be part of an election debate, but has helped fuel the debate by calling for an international "moratorium" on abortion.
He echoed, in part, his old friend Giuliano Ferrara, a conservative journalist who launched his own campaign for election on the platform of "Abortion: No Thanks."
Ferrara says abortion is evil and should be eradicated, not by outlawing it but by creating conditions that encourage women to have babies and make it next to impossible for them to terminate their pregnancies.
His position won immediate praise from top Vatican officials, although Ferrara says his position is not based on Catholic faith.
The number of abortions performed in Italy has declined precipitously since its legalization, which supporters say is an indication that the law is effective and does not need changing.
---
wilkinson@latimes.com
