Zürcher Nachrichten - Italian feminist fighter Emma Bonino dies

A veteran of battles for the right to divorce and abortion, Bonino was a former member of Italy's Radical Party who commanded respect across the political spectrum.

"Today we lose not only our leader but also one of the most clear-sighted, courageous and free figures in the political history of our country," the small More Europe party she founded said on Facebook on Friday.

Bonino served as a European commissioner and a foreign minister in Italy but was best known as a militant feminist with an inexorable dedication to political and humanitarian causes.

Italy's far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, paid homage, saying that although their "backgrounds and perspectives differed, that never prevented me from acknowledging her significance and her role in our nation's public life".

European Parliament president Roberta Metsola also paid tribute, saying: "The Europe she fought for will miss her".

- Battle for abortion rights -

Born on a farm in Bra in northwest Italy in 1948, Bonino graduated with a degree in foreign languages and literature at Milan's Bocconi University before joining the Radical Party.

It was the start of a lifelong political passion that she said began thanks to a gynecologist.

After being told she was sterile, Bonino got pregnant aged 27.

She decided to abort, saying in a 2023 interview: "In my life, I have had many kinds of courage but not the courage to become a mother."

Aborting in Italy at the time was illegal, difficult, expensive and humiliating.

"The humiliation was so intense that I said to myself: 'Never again, not for anyone'", she said.

Bonino met a leading women's rights advocate, embraced civil disobedience and began accompanying women to a Florentine abortion clinic.

She joined the campaign to legalise abortion, going on hunger strikes and demanding to be arrested for terminating her pregnancy -- protests that led her into politics.

In 1975 she founded the Centre for Information, Sterilisation and Abortion (CISA) before running for parliament and being elected an MP for the Radical Party in 1976.

- 'Political weapon' -

Abortion was legalised in 1978, but Bonino was already campaigning hard on other issues, from the liberalisation of soft drugs to stopping nuclear power.

In the following years, she fought for controlled heroin programmes and against the death penalty and world hunger.

Elected several times to the European Parliament, she served as European Consumer Protection Commissioner from 1994 to 1999 and was made a senator in Rome in 2008.

She was appointed Italy's minister for international trade and European policies from 2006 to 2008, then foreign minister from 2013 to 2014.

Bonino returned to campaigning in 2018 at the head of a new political movement, "Piu Europa" (More Europe), to defend migrant rights and the European Union.

By then she was one of Italy's best-known female politicians and was running high in opinion polls -- with 43 percent, second only to then prime minister Paolo Gentiloni.

But despite its slogan "Love Me Less, Vote Me More", the party fell short of the three percent of the total vote needed to clinch a seat in parliament.

Bonino was diagnosed in 2015 with pulmonary microcytoma -- a particularly aggressive lung cancer -- receiving the all clear in 2023.

In 2024, she was hospitalised for respiratory problems.

While she was recovering at home afterwards, she received a surprise visit from Pope Francis.

The pair were united by a shared concern for the rights of migrants and held each other in great esteem, despite cultural and religious differences.

In an interview in February 2025, Bonino said her body was failing her and she was paying a physical price for having used it "as a political weapon" for decades.

A.Weber--NZN