Centro studi Machiavelli President Daniele Scalea was interviewed by Francesco Borgonovo in La Verità on Jan. 26, 2024: "For our conference in the Chamber we were attacked only for expressing unorthodox ideas. Law 194 should not be changed, we need to apply it better."

Bigots, retrograde, intolerant: they painted them in the worst possible way. And only because they had the audacity to organize a conference in the Chamber of Deputies where abortion was discussed even with positions not exactly in line with the prevailing thought. Yet the animators of the Centro studi Machiavelli-one of the most interesting conservative think tanks in Italy and Europe-are anything but rigid and hostile to nuance. Starting with Daniele Scalea, the president.

Scalea, are you an anti-abortion think tank, as Repubblica calls you? Repubblica?

"No. The Center does not have a precise and explicit position on the issue of abortion. Various sensitivities coexist within it, as emerged in the conference itself. I personally believe that every child that is born instead of being aborted is a good thing and to be pursued, but also that this should be done by helping mothers and not forcing them. Law 194 seems to me a good compromise and I would not change it. I would apply it better, as also stated by the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni."

One of your papers circulates, however, in which you argue that abortion is never right and is not a right.

"The paper in issue is published by Machiavelli but is not a programmatic stance of ours. It contains the reflections of two scholars, one of whom is not even affiliated with us. I claim the choice to offer space for contributions of ideas even without sharing them 100 percent. Without going into it, then, I note that we did not invent the debate on whether abortion can be considered an absolute positive right or a health treatment." [...]

Whether or not we share the thoughts expressed by the lady doctor, it remains curious that a conference should arouse such indignation. Are there topics that should not even be talked about today?

"It is so but it should not be so. Free debate and confrontation of ideas is the salt of democracy. This demonization campaign is meant to discourage the heterodox from exposing themselves and having their say. And to those who object that the problem is to state certain things in a hall of Parliament, I reply that in that place, more than in any other, there should be full freedom of expression. Parliament is the temple of democracy."

 

Leggi il resto dell’intervento di Daniele Scalea a questo link.

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Founder and President of Centro Studi Machiavelli. Graduated in Historical Sciences (University of Milan) and PhD in Political Studies (Sapienza University), he is professor of "History and doctrine of jihadism" and "Geopolitics of the Middle East" at Cusano University. From 2018 to 2019 he was Special Advisor on Immigration and Terrorism to the Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Guglielmo Picchi. His latest book (as editor) is Topicality of sovereignism. Between pandemic and war.