Subject: From TRANSNATIONAL - Satyagraha - 12 September 1994 - No. 7
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Fortnightly Newsletter of the Radical Party
CAIRO CONFERENCE: INTERVIEW WITH EMMA BONINO
The following are excerpts from an interview with Emma Bonino on the
Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, published on 8 September
by the Italian daily "L'Informazione".
(...) We have declared our backing for the document, because the Conference
completely sweeps away all interference from above, both from religious
integralism and from state control, putting the individual, and women in
particular, back at the centre of development.
(...) Will the Cairo Conference manage to avoid what you call interference
from above?
I hope so. The only way to pursue human development is to call on the
responsibility of individuals. And this is the real problem which causes
fear, especially among religious integralists.
What about all the debate over that ambiguous section that refers to
abortion as a means of family planning?
It's all nonsense, if I might say so. The document does not talk about
this, and in any case no woman would ever accept it. The document notes, on
the other hand, that a high rate of mortality is caused by illegal
abortion, which it invites us to reduce. Beyond all forms of hypocrisy, the
only way to reduce it is the use of contraception. The conflict is all
about this: information on, and the use and availability of contraceptives.
(...) So how do you view the arguments that have erupted over abortion?
I am neither able or willing to go back in time, but it is undoubtedly true
that there are politicians, now more than in the past, who have an
integralist vision of the ethical state. A vision opposed to that of the
lay state, where religion is a question of individual conscience and where
the state establishes the rules for the co-existence of its citizens,
whatever their religious beliefs. (...)
