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
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