The key focus of the recently-held G7 summit in Italy was on artificial intelligence, the global economy, security and defence, as well as the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza. However, abortion rights and LGBTQ issues did not appear in the official G7 declaration, which was made public on Friday. This omission prompted journalists to question their absence—a claim that was met with denial from the Italian Government.
Italy’s far-right government, led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, denied that abortion and LGBTQ references were removed from the G7 declaration. It is pertinent to note that both these references were included in the G7 declaration when the summit was held in Japan last year. However, in the latest declaration published on June 13, the first day of the summit, a reference to the protection of the “gender identity and sexual orientation” of the LGBTQ community was left out. The word “abortion” was also left out of the declaration.
While abortion was omitted from the declaration, a commitment was made to the “universal access to adequate, affordable, and quality health services for women, including comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights for all” by G7 leaders.
Last year, the G7 leaders committed to “access to safe and legal abortion” as part of women’s healthcare in Japan. The removal of LGBTQ rights and abortion was first reported by Bloomberg, which linked it to the involvement of Pope Francis in the G7 summit.
The Guardian reported Meloni’s office as saying, “The news published by Bloomberg, according to which any reference to the rights of LGBT people could be removed from the final G7 communique, is devoid of any foundation. The Italian presidency [of the G7] categorically denies this reconstruction.”
Earlier, there was a disagreement between Meloni and French President Emmanuel Macron after Italy was accused of diluting the reference to access to safe abortion in the G7 declaration’s final text. Speaking to an Italian journalist on the sidelines of the summit, Macron said, “You don’t have the same sensibilities in your country. France has a vision of equality between women and men, but it’s not a vision shared by all the political spectrum.”