La Russa's apology not enough says Schlein

(ANSA) - ROME, APR 1 - Centre-left opposition Democratic Party (PD) leader Elly Schlein said Saturday Senate Speaker Ignazio la Russa's apology for offending people in criticising the 1944 Rome Partisan attack that triggered the Nazi Ardeatine Caves reprisal massacre was not enough and he should resign his post, the second highest in Italy.
    La Russa earlier said sorry for not calling the 33 victims of the attack Nazi soldiers, instead characterising them as harmless members of a marching band and calling the Partisan attack that triggered in response the extermination of 335 Italian men and boys in Hitler's 10 for one reprisal "not the most glorious of acts" in the Italian Resistance.
    "An apology is not enough because every day we hear very serious statements from people occupying important posts," said Schlein's the PD's youngest and first woman leader.
    "Yesterday, not only did they reach Via Rasella (the street near the Trevi Fountain where the Partisan attack took place) with the intention of rewriting history, but we also heard talk of women as ovens, fridges, which are ways of dodging the questions the opposition is raising," said Schelin, referring to a row about surrogacy or what the centre right prefers to call 'wombs to rent', as Italian cities have been forced by the government to stop registering the children of same-sex couples.
    Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani on Friday stressed the government's opposition to surrogacy amid a row on registering same-sex couple's children in Italy saying that women's bodies weren't like ovens that bake potatoes.
    "A woman cannot be exploited: she is not a cigarette machine. A woman's womb must not be used to churn out children as if it were an oven where roast potatoes are baked", Tajani, who is also deputy premier and No 2 in Silvio Berlusconi's centre right Forza Italia (FI) party, said on the sidelines of a local election rally in the northen city of Udine, after the European Parliament came out for the rights of same-sex families and their children.
    "It is not that women can decide on the uterus for rent," he added, "one cannot commodify one's own body. To the EU parliament I answer that the rules are written in Italy: it is not a question of European competences.
    The parliament was not legislating, it gave a majority opinion: if you want to change the rules you have to change them in Italy".
    The European Parliament on Thursday approved an amendment to its motion for a resolution on the rule of law condemning "the instructions given by the Italian government to the municipality of Milan to suspend the registration of adoptions of same-sex couples." The amendment was submitted by the Renew Europe group and supported by the Left, Greens and Socialists.
    Milan was recently forced to stop a procedure it had used to register both members of a same-sex couple as the parents of a child after the prefect's department warned it was illegal following consultations with the interior ministry.
    The procedure was based on the transcription into the Milan civil register of foreign birth certificates of children conceived by surrogacy, which is illegal in Italy, or assisted fertility, which is only allowed for heterosexual couples here.
    Furthermore, Premier Giorgia Meloni's right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party has tabled a bill that would make surrogacy a "universal crime", meaning that Italians could be prosecuted for using the practice in foreign States where it is legal.
    Many Italian same-sex couples have had children via surrogacy outside the country.
    The centre-left Democratic Party (PD) has condemned the government's actions and said it will fight to pass legislation protecting the rights of same-sex-parent families. Milan Mayor Beppe Sala on Wednesday called for all the opposition parties to form a broad alliance to fight for the rights of same-sex-parent families (ANSA).