Italy’s far-right government has denied that it removed references to abortion and LGBTQ rights in the final declaration of the G7 summit in Puglia. In the declaration, published late on Friday, a reference to the protection of the “gender identity and sexual orientation” of the LGBTQ community did not appear, although reference had been included in the final declaration of the G7 in Japan last year.
The word “abortion” was also left out of a broader commitment to “universal access to adequate, affordable, and quality health services for women, including comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights for all”.
In last year’s communique, G7 leaders had explicitly committed to addressing “access to safe and legal abortion”.