Abortion, LGBT Rights Feared To Be On Cutting-Room Floor After Brothers Of Italy Win

After the Sunday Italian election win of the far-right party Brothers of Italy, led by probable future Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, many LGBT and feminist organizations fear a future rollback and erosion of rights under her party’s term.

With Meloni’s party’s win, many LGBT activist say that they have “very real fears” about the rollback of LGBT rights and potentially instituting anti-LGBT policies due to the right-wing nature of the Brothers of Italy, as well as their alliance with fellow conservative parties League and Forza Italia, according to Reuters.

“The League and partly Brothers of Italy have in their manifestos things that are quite negative for our community, like stressing the importance of protecting only the traditional family,” the Gay Party representative Fabrizio Marrazzo said.

Meloni and her party has expressed anti-LGBT rhetoric, including her opposition to gay parenting and adoption, and she has also expressed an opposition to the right of abortion in the country, though she maintains that her party will not attempt to change Law 194, which guarantees the right to abortion in Italy, ABC News reported.

In Italy, same-sex unions were legalized in 2016 despite opposition from members of the coalition, including the Brothers of Italy culture spokesperson Federico Mollicone. In spite of their opposition to either law, the party has promised to uphold the laws and not make any changes to them during their tenure.

Despite this, Italians across the country went out to protest on Wednesday for the right to abortion to be protected, with many believing that Meloni and her party will attack the legislature once she is in position. Many believe that she will run anti-LGBT programs in schools as well as make it even harder for women to be able to access abortions.

“I don’t believe what she says about choice,” protestor Donatella Marcelli said.

“I have been an activist for a very long time and there are people who I do not know who are writing to me on Instagram, ‘I am afraid,’ ‘I don’t know what to do,’ ‘I am very worried, I want to cry,’” Alessia Crocini for the LGBT rights advocacy group Rainbow Families said.