Emma Bonino, the Italian politician and human rights campaigner who played a defining role in the legalisation of abortion and divorce in Italy, has died at the age of 78, her party confirmed.
Bonino’s political journey began with a personal experience that would shape five decades of activism. At 26, she became pregnant and had an illegal abortion, an experience she later described as one of the most humiliating of her life. Rather than retreat from it, she turned it into a cause.
In 1975, she was among the founders of the Information Centre for Sterilisation and Abortion. The organisation provided information and performed abortions before they were made legal in Italy. A year later, she was elected to parliament for the Radical Party. The party’s movement was defined by anticlericalism, civil libertarianism, and feminism at a time when those positions required genuine courage in Italian public life.
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She went on to serve as a European Commissioner and co-founded the death penalty watchdog Hands Off Cain. All while remaining a prominent voice in Italian political life across five decades. Although her 1999 bid to become Italy’s first female president was unsuccessful.
After her cancer diagnosis in 2015, she continued to appear publicly and frequently on Italian television. She was instantly recognisable for the colourful headscarves she wore and the sharp wit she never lost.
Born on March 9, 1948, in Bra, near Turin, she grew up on a farm where she described her childhood as “deadly boring.” She left it behind to become one of the most consequential women in modern Italian history.
She is survived by her siblings, Domenica and Giovanni, and their children.
