Sep 11, 2026
By Crispian Balmer
ROME (Reuters) – Emma Bonino’s life in politics began with a crime. In 1974, at a time when abortion was illegal in Italy, she travelled to a clandestine clinic in Florence to terminate an unplanned pregnancy.
“Coming back by train at night, I decided that never, never, never again should anyone have to suffer this humiliation,” she later recalled. A year later, determined to drag abortion out of the shadows, she handed herself in to the police, turning her private “offence” into a public act of defiance.
The arrest made headlines, fueling a campaign that eventually led to the legalisation of abortion in 1978. It also launched Bonino into parliament with the Radical Party, a small but relentless force for civil rights.