A reference that guarantees “safe and legal” abortion access was omitted from the G7 summit’s final declaration amid reports that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni facilitated its removal.
France and Canada originally lobbied for the text, intended to “affirm the importance of preserving and ensuring effective access to safe and legal abortion and post-abortion care.” It was allegedly seen in draft documents earlier in the week, but was reportedly removed after Meloni’s intervention. The removal caused Meloni to spar with French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been an outspoken proponent of abortion.
“There is no reason to argue about issues on which we have already agreed for some time. I believe it is profoundly wrong, in difficult times like these, to campaign using a precious forum like the G7,” Meloni told reporters Thursday.
Macron said he “regretted” removal of the abortion language.
“It is regrettable that the word abortion is missing from the G7 final declaration,” he told Italian news agency Ansa, appearing to then lob an insult at the people of Italy, saying, “France has a vision of equality between women and men, but it’s not shared by all the political spectrum. You don’t have the same sensibilities in your country.”
Italy’s prime minister is a woman.
Women are inherently equal to men without the ability to kill their preborn children. Claiming that women can’t achieve equality without killing other, weaker human beings — their own offspring — is a misogynistic idea. Perhaps instead of advocating for the death of innocent human beings, society should make room for and welcome women’s childbearing ability, and strengthen the idea of intact families, instead of expecting women to become like men — in a sense, wombless — to achieve success.
READ: France’s Emmanuel Macron wants EU charter revision to include ‘right to abortion’
U.S. President Joe Biden is also said to have advocated for the abortion language’s inclusion. “The president felt very strongly that we need to have at the very least the language that references what we did in Hiroshima on women’s health and reproductive rights,” a senior US administration official told CNN.
The abortion clause’s inclusion would have solidified the summit stance adopted last year in Hiroshima, Japan, which stated the leaders’ “full commitment to achieving comprehensive [sexual and reproductive health and rights] for all, including by addressing access to safe and legal abortion and post-abortion care.”
According to a draft G7 statement reviewed by Reuters, though the final declaration drops any mention of abortion, it upholds commitments “to universal access to adequate, affordable, and quality health services for women,” which can be achieved without intentionally killing preborn human beings.
