A colleague on the Italian American Professionals group on LinkedIn posed the following question: “Since the death rate in Italy exceeds the birth rate, Italians are a disappearing race. How do we stop this from happening?” My response is as follows:
“May I also suggest that you support the pro-life movement in Italy? As you know, abortion is legal in the United States throughout the nine months of pregnancy for any reason whatsoever. The disastrous effects of the 1973 abortion decisions are now apparent to virtually all–“virtually all” because most traditional feminist organizations (the backward ones, whose perspectives derive from 1950s activists like Simone de Beauvoir) and political forces like the Democratic Party in the United States and the so-called “major” network media (allies with that same party, as everyone knows) still think abortion is a “good” and not the social and anti-feminist evil that it is.
“Hopefully, Italy will learn from the United States’ example. True feminists in Italy should do three things: 1. welcome the unborn child, 2. do everything to assist his or her mother, and 3. work for the creation of a culture which supports life. These are principles that even Communist Italians can support, whether they are atheist, Catholic, or “other.”
“I fear, though, that what some scholars call the “demographic winter” has already fallen across Europe. It isn’t just the case of the “monofiglio” syndrome (couples wanting to have only one child, and a boy at that—which should itself be a disgrace to any feminist thinker.) I defer to your expertise, though, in gauging contemporary Italian society.
“Finally, perhaps the National Right to Life Committee in Washington, DC can assist you (nrlc.org).”
UFL colleagues may be interested in posting their own replies, subject to their being admitted to the group. Please call or email if you have any questions.
Dr. Jeff Koloze
Dr. Jeff Koloze (English, Kent State University) is president and founder of Koloze Consultants, whose objective is "...to conduct research on the life issues for presentation and publication." Before his retirement under STRS (Ohio) in 2014, Dr. Koloze was Associate Professor of English at the Cleveland, Ohio Campus of South University. His most recent administrative position was Campus College Chair for the College of Humanities, the College of Natural Sciences, and the College of Social Sciences from 2005-2011 at the Columbus, Ohio Campus of the University of Phoenix; in 2009 he was appointed one of twelve senior research fellows for that institution. Dr. Koloze has taught communications, undergraduate and graduate English, and humanities courses since 1989 at several colleges and universities in the Cleveland, Columbus, and Springfield, Ohio metropolitan areas. His primary research interest is the presentation of the right-to-life issues of abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia in literature; most of his publications are available in conference proceedings and on the web. He has presented over eighty papers before academic and professional organizations on these topics, most recently at conferences at the American University of Rome (2015), Fordham University (2014), Harvard University (2010 and 2012), Ryerson University (Toronto, 2009), the University of Notre Dame (2011), and the University of San Francisco (2013). He is the author of An Ethical Analysis of the Portrayal of Abortion in American Fiction: Dreiser, Hemingway, Faulkner, Dos Passos, Brautigan, and Irving (Edwin Mellen, 2005) and Testament to a Niagara Obsession (Spare Change Press; Ten Leaves Poetry Series, 2014). Dr. Koloze invites colleagues and students to join him on Facebook, Gab, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social networking services. He can be emailed at [email protected].
