Contemporary Feminist Struggles for the Right to Health-Care in Italy

The present paper analyzes the development of feminist struggles around sexual and reproductive health-care in contemporary Italy, by looking at the legacies of feminist movements of the 70s for the current feminist mobilization. It aims at shedding light on how movement outcomes matter for later cycles of mobilization. Health-care has always been a crucial terrain of mobilization for feminist movements. In the context of feminist massive mobilization of the 70s, Italy has seen the rise of several experimentations of feminist self-organized health-care groups and counselling centers. By the end of the 70s two major laws were issued addressing the claims of the movement: the law 194/1978, regulating and legalizing the right to abortion and the law 405/1975, instituting through regional programs the new so called “family counseling centers” by also allowing the self-organized centers to apply for public fundings and legal recognition. This process of at least partial institutionalization of some of the claims of the movements, has been considered both as a successful outcome of the movement itself and as its partial defeat, hence leading to an intense internal debate around the relation between feminist politics and the state. Forty years later both laws are under threat, while a new feminist movement is on the rise. On the one hand the effects of the crisis have been particularly relevant for health-care related public services and especially for what concerns counselling centers and anti-violence centers. On the other hand, reproduction is becoming again a field of neoliberal and right-wing intervention as it is proved by the growing attempt to restrict the right to abortion where it is granted, or the fierce opposition of governments to recognize it where denied. At the same time, a new moment of massive mobilization is unfolding: Non Una Di Meno is an intergenerational movement, in which different actors converge, coming also from previous generations of feminists. The movement has re-activated old groups, and it has pushed former activists and professionals from counselling centers to engage (again) with feminist mobilization. While a new generation of feminists is also experimenting with more horizontal models, opening new counselling centers, which do defend the outcomes of the 70s while also experiments with new alternatives in the field of health-care. How do the institutional outcomes of social movements of the past produce further outcomes on future waves of mobilisation? The paper presents the preliminary results of fieldwork in Rome and Milan, conducted through semi-structured interviews, participant observation and document analysis. Comparing the current context of the two cities and looking at the different ways in which the legacy of past struggles is articulated in contemporary feminist movement, the research aims at shedding light on different possible trajectories through which processes of institutionalization affect new cycles of mobilization.