Emma Bonino dies at 78 after five decades of fighting for abortion rights and equality

Italys Emma Bonino a longtime radical activist and one of the countrys most popular political figures has died aged 78A veteran of battles for the right to divorce and abortion Bonino was a former member of Italys Radical Party who commanded respect across the political spectrumToday we lose not only our leader but also one of the most clearsighted courageous and free figures in the political history of our country the small More Europe party she founded said on Facebook on FridayBonino served as a European commissioner and a foreign minister in Italy but was best known as a militant feminist with an inexorable dedication to political and humanitarian causesEuropean Parliament president Roberta Metsola paid tribute saying The Europe she fought for will miss herItalys farright prime minister Giorgia Meloni said that although their backgrounds and perspectives differed that never prevented me from acknowledging her significance and her role in our nations public lifeAhead of the 2022 general election that brought Meloni to power Bonino had said she did not agree with one single word one single proposal from Meloni and voters had to chose between two different visions of ItalyBattle for abortion rightsBorn on a farm in Bra in northwest Italy in 1948 Bonino graduated with a degree in foreign languages and literature at Milans Bocconi University before joining the Radical PartyIt was the start of a lifelong political passion that she said began thanks to a gynecologistAfter being told she was sterile Bonino got pregnant aged 27She decided to abort saying in a 2023 interview In my life I have had many kinds of courage but not the courage to become a motherAborting in Italy at the time was illegal difficult expensive and humiliatingThe humiliation was so intense that I said to myself Never again not for anyone she saidBonino met a leading womens rights advocate embraced civil disobedience and began accompanying women to a Florentine abortion clinicShe joined the campaign to legalise abortion going on hunger strikes and demanding to be arrested for terminating her pregnancy protests that led her into politicsIn 1975 she founded the Centre for Information Sterilisation and Abortion CISA before running for parliament and being elected an MP for the Radical Party in 1976Political weaponAbortion was legalised in 1978 but Bonino was already campaigning hard on other issues from the liberalisation of soft drugs to stopping nuclear powerIn the following years she fought for controlled heroin programmes and against the death penalty and world hungerElected several times to the European Parliament she served as European Consumer Protection Commissioner from 1994 to 1999 and was made a senator in Rome in 2008She was appointed Italys minister for international trade and European policies from 2006 to 2008 then foreign minister from 2013 to 2014Bonino returned to campaigning in 2018 at the head of a new political movement Piu Europa More Europe to defend migrant rights and the European UnionBy then she was one of Italys bestknown female politicians and was running high in opinion polls with 43 percent second only to then prime minister Paolo GentiloniBut despite its slogan Love Me Less Vote Me More the party fell short of the three percent of the total vote needed to clinch a seat in parliamentBonino was diagnosed in 2015 with pulmonary microcytoma a particularly aggressive lung cancer receiving the all clear in 2023In 2024 she was hospitalised for respiratory problemsWhile she was recovering at home afterwards she received a surprise visit from Pope FrancisThe pair were united by a shared concern for the rights of migrants and held each other in great esteem despite cultural and religious differencesIn an interview in February 2025 Bonino said her body was failing her and she was paying a physical price for having used it as a political weapon for decadesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever