Questioned by the press about the absence of the word “abortion” in the final declaration of the leaders gathered at the G7 summit, Emmanuel Macron said he “regretted it” while “respecting” a policy which derives from the “sovereign choice” of the Italians.
The head of the Italian government Giorgia Meloni, who chaired the G7 summit, castigated this Saturday June 15 “an artificial controversy” on the lack of mention of the right to abortion in the leaders’ final declaration.
“The controversy was constructed in a completely artificial way and in fact it is a controversy that did not take place at the top (…) because there was nothing to argue about,” assured Giorgia Meloni during the closing press conference of the summit, while this subject made the headlines in the media in Italy and abroad.
Arm wrestling
In the final declaration released Friday evening, the leaders of the seven richest democracies on the planet made no direct reference to the right to abortion. A significant change compared to the last summit in Hiroshima, Japan, in 2023, when the press release showed their attachment to “access to safe and legal abortion and post-abortion care services”. The subject gave rise to a standoff behind the scenes between the delegations.
The United States, France and the European Union, in particular, wanted to keep this wording, but the Italian Prime Minister, at the head of an ultraconservative party and who holds the rotating presidency of the G7, categorically refused to write black on white the formulation approved last year.
The final declaration published on Friday simply reiterates the “commitments of the Hiroshima Leaders’ Declaration to universal, adequate, affordable and quality access to health services for women, including sexual and reproductive rights and health comprehensively for all”.
Macron against Meloni
“Usually in these documents to avoid making them unnecessarily repetitive when something is repeated, we refer to previous documents”tried to justify Giorgia Meloni.
The dispute came to light in Puglia on Thursday, in the form of a face-to-face between Emmanuel Macron and Giorgia Meloni. Asked by the press about the absence of the word “abortion”the French president said “regret it” all in “respecting» a policy that derives from “sovereign choice” Italians.
This outing angered Giorgia Meloni whose government passed a law, passed in Parliament, to authorize anti-abortion activists to access public health system consultation clinics for women considering having a voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG). . “This is a serious mistake” of “campaign using a valuable forum like the G7”she replied to Emmanuel Macron.
Any mention of “gender identity” is gone
On the rights of LGBTQ+ communities, the Italian G7 text is also less exhaustive than that of 2023, even if it is clearly mentioned that “deep concern about the decline in the rights of women, girls and LGBTQIA+ people around the world, particularly in times of crisis”.
Likewise, in 2023 the G7 expressed the need to protect and support “diversity, particularly with regard to sexual orientation and gender identity”. In the 2024 declaration, any mention of “gender identity” has disappeared. Here again, Ms. Meloni asserted that there was “no backsliding” on LGBTQ rights.
