Italy: Women to be paid 'a fee' for rejecting abortion

AKI ^ | 6/1/2010

[markomalley]

Milan, 1 June (AKI) - The northern Italian region of Lombardy is set to pay pregnant women in "economic difficulty" a fee of 4,500 euros if they reject abortion, conservative regional president Roberto Formigoni has said. Under his proposal, beneficiaries would receive 18 monthly instalments of 250 euros.

"No woman in Lombardy will have an abortion because of economic difficulty," Formigoni (photo) said on Monday.

Abortion has been legal in overwhelmingly Catholic Italy since 1978 in the first 90 days of pregnancy and until the 24th week if the life of the mother is at risk or the foetus is malformed.

An Italian constitutional court in 1988 ruled a woman can have an abortion without her husband's permission.

Formigoni, an ally of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, announced the creation of the 5 million-euro Nasko Fund in March to be financed by the regional government to pay expectant mothers to keep their children.

"We want to support and the birth rate, by removing the greatest obstacles, beginning with the economic obstacle, which makes it more difficult to make a choice to support life," Formigoni said.

Formigoni has a record of fighting abortion. In 1989 when he was a European MP, Formigoni denounced a therapeutic abortion involving a five-month female foetus diagnosed as having a genetic anomaly.

In 2008 Formigoni's Lombardy region moved to limit abortions in cases where the foetus is more than 22 weeks and three days.

When Italian hospitals first started dispensing the RU486 pill earlier this year, Formigoni said it was in conflict with Italy's abortion law.

[billorites]

There’s an ignorance of the basic laws of economics here.

[Perdogg]

I will volunteer to help Italy with their declining birthrate by help producing children.

[Sacajaweau]

IIRC, Hillary proposed the same thing.

[Ancient Drive]

me too.

[Paladin2]

Women to be paid a fee to possibly get pregnant.....no, wait, that’s just wrong.

[American Constitutionalist]

This is called forced abortion because the “ women in economic difficulty “ is just a excuse to open the door for other reasons to force abortions on women.

[swain_forkbeard]

“There’s an ignorance of the basic laws of economics here.”

If the intent is to increase the birthrate, I think it might work.

[AbeKrieger]

So everyone who gets pregnant can just extend their hand for mo’ money by faking intent to abort?

Likewise, the uninformed poor will get knocked up because they are guaranteed 18 months of OPM.

[mainsail that]

250 euros a month aren’t going to do it if you want to use money as an incentive

[American Constitutionalist]

" This is called forced abortion because the “ women in economic difficulty “ is just a excuse to open the door for other reasons to force abortions on women. "

Sorry, my mistake, I read it wrong.

[struggle]

Then allow the mother to put the child up for adoption.

I’d be happy to adopt an Italian baby. He could help me on Mafia Wars.

[Clock King]

And the fee is paid out of who’s pocket?

[Mrs. Don-o]

Maybe not, if what they want is to boost the rate of pregnancy and childbirth. And effective for Muslim immigrants as well as Italians. Probably MORE effective for them.

If one wants to boost the rate of "in-wedlock, Italian" childbirth, the problem there isn't that people lack money, but that they lack meaning. I suspect the only way to supply what's lacking in the "meaning" department --- addressing the faith, hope, and love gap --- is a revitalization of Catholicism, something the state can't do because it's a spiritual --- not a political -- thing: not the state's job.

[vikingd00d]

>> If the intent is to increase the birthrate, I think it might work.

This policy is more likely to increase the Muslim birthrate, rather than the Italian birthrate.

From wikipedia:

During the last two decades, Lombardy became the destination of a large number of foreign immigrants, so today more than a quarter of all foreign immigrants in Italy lives in Lombardy. As of 2008, the Italian national institute of statistics ISTAT estimated that 815,335 foreign-born immigrants live in Lombardy, equal to 8.4% of the total regional population.

[central_va]

I just watched a Sophia Loren Italian movie made in 1954 where she had to stay pregnant to stay out of jail, she had about 6 back to back kids, wore her poor husband out(lucky jerk). So in fifty years now it’s the opposite...

[LZ_Bayonet]

" just watched a Sophia Loren Italian movie made in 1954 "

What was the name of the movie?

[Jack Hydrazine]

Last I read the fertility rate of Italy was 1.41 and dropping. Even Japan is using financial incentives to encourage Japanese couples to have children because their fertility rate is even lower at 1.34. Russia is at 1.49. America is right at replacement level which is 2.1.

[central_va]

Yesterday, Today and Tommorrow. (1963) sorry not 1953...

[Mrs. Don-o]

True. And if you exclude immigrants and first-generation children of immigrants from the count, the US has been below replacement for the last 40 years.