Popular Civic (CP) leader and
Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin told a Facebook-ANSA live
forum Monday that her centre-left alliance, led by the
Democratic Party (PD), would never govern with the centre right.
"Above all," she said, "there can be no possibility of ruling
with" the anti-migrant and Euroskeptic League of Matteo Salvini.
"No, I made a rather clear choice five years ago when I left
(ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia) FI where I had
campaigned since I was a girl, because it was no longer the same
and the decision to bring down the Letta government would spell
instability for the country. We were right," she said.
Lorenzin went on to say that "in my view Berlusconi's mistake
was to back an electoral law that only rewards the League, and
we can see the fruits" of that.
She said "an electoral campaign appealing to gut instincts
and anger and not based on love creates problems," she said.
Lorenzin went on to address a wide range of health and
bioethical issues.
She stressed that there would be no change to the law on
obligatory vaccinations for schoolchildren, saying that "we knew
that there would be pressure from 'No Vax' lawyers, who are
advisors to the M5S party, or actions like those of the Raggi
(Rome municipal) administration to try to pressure the ministry
to avoid the law. But there will be no change to it. In this
country of ours, one side calls for legality and the other to
circumvent it."
"If you have not scheduled the vaccinations and you are not
up to date with your vaccinations, you will not go to school. Of
course this is not the case if it is a matter of health problems
for the child or problems with the local health authority, if
you have an appointment after March 10," she noted.
She lashed out at "social media disinformation campaigns
against vaccines, This is a very serious matter. You must not be
afraid of vaccines, and I say this both as minister and as a
mother. They do not jeopardize children's health, while those
saying the contrary instead do."
On the issue of living wills, "I wasn't against them but I
was puzzled by specific points. One was about the registrars,
which we included in the budget law. There was also the point
about managing resuscitation times, brought up by
anesthesiologists. These issues have nothing to do with the will
to determine one's own future."
On the law on same-sex unions, "I voted for it and fully
supported it. I was against the adoption of stepchildren, which
is a window towards renting uteruses and is an abomination for
women. Renting uteruses (surrogacy) is reducing women to an
object and it raises concern for children who in turn become
objects as well," she said.
On sentences for drug-related crime, she said that "there is
something that differentiates us from the PD: we must raise
sentences for selling drugs. We cannot fight jail overcrowding
by keeping pushers out of jail."
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