by Alice Dominese
Abstract: In this investigation, interviews and analysis of documents obtained through a request for access to records explore the relationship between the anti-abortion movement, health care and public services in Piedmont. The information gathered sheds light on the use that “pro-life” associations make of regional funding and on how these associations have managed to insert themselves within the first hospital for number of voluntary interruptions of pregnancy in Italy.
When the Stanza dell’ascolto (Listening Room) was created in the Piedmontese hospital with the highest number of abortions nationwide, anti-abortion movements celebrated it as a victory. Inside, the “pro-life” associations that run it claim to offer “concrete support and closeness to pregnant women, trying to address the causes that might lead to an abortion.”
Since its opening was announced, this room has become a symbol of a political battle over women’s bodies, denounced by the feminist network + di 194 voci. As reported by the associations involved, efforts to obstruct access to abortion have been ongoing for years in Piedmont – also through the murky use of the Fondo Vita Nascente. This fund has been used by the Region since 2022 to finance the involvement of anti-abortion associations in the public healthcare system.
However, the Stanza dell’ascolto is not the only presence through which “pro-life” movements operate inside hospitals in the Piedmontese capital. As this investigation shows, Turin and its Region are at the heart of a gradual process of contamination between public services and associations affiliated with the Movimento per la Vita.
Piedmont and the Restrictions on Abortion
Piedmont is one of the regions in Italy with the highest number of voluntary terminations of pregnancy (VTPs), and since 2020, medical abortion has been banned in local family planning clinics (consultori), despite national guidelines from the Ministry of Health allowing it. During the same period, the region’s center-right government began promoting the presence of anti-abortion movements in clinics and hospitals through a dedicated resolution, allowing these groups to register with local health authorities (ASLs) and open informational help desks. That same resolution later enabled these associations to enter the Sant’Anna Hospital in Turin with the so-called Stanza dell’ascolto.
“I believe this is a historic step, not only for the Movimento per la Vita, but for the true protection of women, motherhood, and nascent life,” said Claudio Larocca, president of FederviPA – the Federation of the Movimento per la Vita – on July 31, 2023. The federation brings together the movement’s various local branches in Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta. That date marks when FederviPA and the Centro di Aiuto alla Vita of Rivoli, both led by Larocca, signed the agreement with the Città della Salute e della Scienza di Torino hospital authority to open the room.
Feminist and civil rights associations that are part of the + di 194 voci network have long criticized the regional administration for the barriers it places on access to abortion and women’s self-determination. In response to their criticism over the presence of an anti-abortion association within the hospital, Larocca stated that the aim of the service is to “fully implement Law 194, especially its preventive section that remains largely unfulfilled, which also provides for the involvement of volunteer organizations in addressing the causes that may lead to termination of pregnancy.”
However, the statute of the Italian Movimento per la Vita – to which the associations managing the Stanza dell’ascolto belong – clearly states that “the Federation also opposes Law 194/78, as well as any measure that seeks to introduce or legitimize abortion, euthanasia, or any intrinsically life-suppressing manipulation.”
The Political Role of the Stanza dell’ascolto
The agreement to open the room was signed in the presence of Maurizio Marrone, Regional Councillor for Social Policies and a member of the Fratelli d’Italia party, who promoted the initiative and framed the event as a crucial milestone: “The agreement with the university hospital Città della Salute completes the series of initiatives launched since 2020, starting with the ban on RU486 in family planning clinics – despite the Speranza guidelines recommending it – with the registration of Centri di Aiuto alla Vita with local health authorities, and the launch of the regional Fondo Vita Nascente, establishing Piedmont as a leader in the social protection of motherhood – a model now being followed by several other Italian regions.”
Although the opening of the room had been announced multiple times since summer 2023, it only became a reality nearly a year later, on September 9, 2024. In the meantime, in October 2023, the CGIL union and the feminist movement Se Non Ora Quando Torino filed an urgent appeal with the regional administrative court (TAR), requesting the annulment of the agreement, which they claimed violated the principles of Law 194. The court dismissed the appeal in January 2024, stating there was no urgency, as the room had not yet opened.
In July 2025 – nearly a year after the room’s official inauguration – the regional court intervened again, ruling that the room must be shut down: the agreement between the university hospital Città della Salute, FederviPA, and the Centro di Aiuto alla Vita of Rivoli was declared unlawful. The reason: the statute of the Italian Movimento per la Vita – to which the associations operating the room are linked – was found to be in conflict with the purpose of Law 194.
Moreover, the court found further issues: in the agreement, FederviPA, which is responsible for coordinating volunteers, merely states that volunteers are selected based on their experience with difficult pregnancies, without providing any mechanism to verify their qualifications. Alongside this, the hospital failed to check whether the associations involved met the necessary structural, organizational, or resource-related standards – making the agreement even more problematic, according to the court. Finally, the fact that FederviPA is not listed in the ASL registries of authorized volunteer organizations permitted to operate in public hospitals was cited as an additional reason for the agreement’s illegitimacy.
According to Elena Ferro, secretary of CGIL Torino and a member of the + di 194 voci network: “The anti-abortion associations present within Sant’Anna oppose the principles of Law 194 and therefore cannot operate in a public space. Now the Piedmont Region must answer for the public funds granted through the Fondo Vita Nascente to these associations, which – as the TAR ruling shows – are operating outside the law.”
Use of the Room and the All-Purpose Volunteer
Today, the agreement between Sant’Anna Hospital and the anti-abortion groups is in force and is set to remain active until the end of 2025, unless renewed. The room is located in a building separate from the hospital wards, which houses some medical staff offices and other volunteer associations. FederviPA explains that the room operates by appointment only and is staffed by “volunteers selected from those with the most experience in supporting difficult pregnancies and specially trained for this new role.” Appointments can be booked via email or through a dedicated chat on the SOS Vita website, though the toll-free number is often unavailable.
As documented in this investigation, when contacting Movimento per la Vita staff to request information about accessing the room, only one name is provided: “Claudio,” described as “the volunteer in charge of the room,” along with his phone number. They instruct people to contact him for all details. This refers to Claudio Larocca – president of FederviPA, the association overseeing the room, president of the Centro di Aiuto alla Vita of Rivoli, which manages the room, and the main volunteer responsible for meeting with users.
To better understand how the room operates, we reached out to Larocca for clarification. He stated that several volunteers from different centers in Turin and its province affiliated with the movement have made themselves available to work in the room: “So far, we’ve had around ten inquiries via chat or phone, which led to three or four meetings – not all of them took place in the room. For instance, one conversation with a couple happened on a bench in front of the University of Turin.”
Concerns About the Training of Those Operating in the Room
According to Laura Onofri, president of the association Se Non Ora Quando Torino – part of the + di 194 voci network – “there is no transparency regarding the kind of assistance offered in the Stanza dell’ascolto. Nothing is known about the type of training the volunteers working there receive, especially since no training is required by the Region, and we don’t even know what kind of training is provided.”
Responding to our interview on the matter, Larocca stated: “The room’s operators are provided with specific training: we’re carrying out a training program in collaboration with the hospital itself. We hold in-person meetings, also led by healthcare workers from the hospital.”
Despite repeated requests for clarification, the nature of the training offered to volunteers who meet with women in the room remains unclear. Regarding the training provided by Sant’Anna Hospital, we reached out to the hospital’s medical director, Umberto Fiandra, who explained: “The hospital provides purely technical training, aimed at making the protections established by Law 194 explicit. The goal is to clearly define the rules of engagement set by the agreement and prevent any type of issue.”
Yet Law 194 – which in Italy governs social protection of motherhood and voluntary termination of pregnancy – is considered “unjust” by the Movimento per la Vita, which has long declared that “its removal is a non-negotiable goal.” Over the years, this position has remained unchanged: since 2013, the movement has been affiliated with Heartbeat International, the global network of “pro-life” organizations that deems abortion “unthinkable.” In February 2025, the national president of the Movimento per la Vita, Marina Casini, once again stated that abortion is not a right.
The Anti-Abortion Movement Over the Years and Its Relationship with the Region
While the movement’s core goal has remained unchanged, its strategy for pursuing that goal has evolved over time. In Turin, Sant’Anna Hospital was long the site of anti-abortion demonstrations, as recalled by Silvio Viale, head of gynecology and director of the hospital’s abortion services: “From the 1990s through 2000, we performed around 18 abortions a day. The Movimento per la Vita would always come – its activists would stand silently on the steps of Corso Spezia at the hospital entrance holding candles. Others tried to enter the ward to protest. Since 2006, with the controversy surrounding RU486, the movement stopped protesting and focused instead on the Gemma Project.”
Launched by the Movimento per la Vita in 1994, the Gemma Project’s stated mission is to offer “financial support to a mother that enables her to calmly carry her pregnancy to term and through the child’s first birthday.” This model of assistance is closely mirrored by the Fondo Vita Nascente, which allocates public funds to pregnant women and new mothers for at least the first 1,000 days of a child’s life. In this context, the welfare-based approach directed at women in economic difficulty is tightly linked to the anti-abortion agenda and becomes a tool to advance it.
Interviewed for this investigation, Larocca explained that the centers run by the Movimento per la Vita – including the room at Sant’Anna – offer support in situations of economic hardship even when abortion is not explicitly being considered: “Women who come to us aren’t those who, when presented with every possible alternative, choose to have an abortion. They’re women facing financial problems, maybe unemployed, who feel forced to abort by their circumstances. The goal is to give these women the chance to vent, to be welcomed, and ultimately to be free not to abort – because often, even if they have a partner, they are essentially alone in facing a moment of understandable fear and great difficulty.”
In response to these alleged economic hardships faced by women, the Piedmont regional government established the Fondo Vita Nascente, which aligns in purpose with the Stanza dell’ascolto. The Region explicitly acknowledges that the room can “provide emotional support, closeness, and tangible, material and financial help, also drawing on the network of centers connected to the Region’s Fondo Vita Nascente, which enables reimbursement for pregnancy- and early childhood-related expenses, as well as access to financial programs made available by the Movimento per la Vita.”
The Ambiguities of “Pro-Life” Associations Receiving Regional Funds
Since 2022, anti-abortion associations have been virtually the sole beneficiaries of the regional fund, which is intended for organizations working in maternal and child welfare and registered with the ASLs in Piedmont. The exception is the European Research Institute, a foundation that claims to focus on education and experimentation in scientific and social fields, with an emphasis on environmental issues – but which over the years has joined anti-abortion associations in tapping into the fund.
The total allocations, which have increased year by year, now exceed three million euros. The regional resolution that renewed the fund in 2024 notes that the first tranche of €460,000 was distributed to 449 women – an average of about €1,000 each. However, as is evident from documents obtained through a freedom of information request, the Region provides neither criteria for awarding funds to recipients nor guidelines for financial reporting – leaving both entirely to the discretion of the funded anti-abortion associations.
The result is a collection of vague and inconsistent expenditure reports, with each association providing different types and levels of information – often omitting required details or lacking receipts and invoices altogether.
Even in the project descriptions, the partnerships with public and private entities that the associations claim to collaborate with under the funding scheme are frequently unclear. Among the groups drawing from this fund, some list Sant’Anna Hospital as a partner – for instance, Movimento per la Vita Torino and Promozione Vita both claim to have provided “obstetric-gynecological consultations” at the hospital since 2022.
Upon analyzing the Region’s documents, it becomes apparent that the link between these associations and the Turin hospital extends beyond the public healthcare system. As the contact person for the supposed consultations at Sant’Anna, both associations name a hospital doctor who appears in other contexts as well: the same doctor has been cited since 2022 by the Centro di Aiuto alla Vita of Rivoli as a private individual who hosts a Movimento per la Vita volunteer in his medical practice “to provide information about the association’s work and the project, and thereby identify particularly difficult cases.”
The Stanza dell’ascolto Before the Stanza dell’ascolto
Movimento per la Vita Torino and Promozione Vita claim to have collaborated with Sant’Anna for some time under the Fondo Vita Nascente, however this is not the first time these associations have had a presence in a public hospital in the city. Their presence at Mauriziano Hospital seems to have long gone under the radar. This hospital is one of four maternity centers in Turin and the one with the lowest number of voluntary terminations of pregnancy, which have steadily declined over the past five years: “There were 72 in 2024, compared to 2,039 at Sant’Anna – which still holds the national record – despite the overall drop in VTPs across Piedmont, while the national trend is on the rise,” explains Dr. Viale, commenting on data collected over the years.
Inside Mauriziano Hospital, a room has existed since the 1990s where anti-abortion associations carry out their activities. Unlike the Stanza dell’ascolto, this space is shared with other volunteer groups and is open only one day a week, for three hours. It is currently managed by Promozione Vita, which periodically signs an agreement with the hospital. However, in their project documents, both Movimento per la Vita Torino and Promozione Vita state that they use the room to carry out activities related to the Fondo Vita Nascente.
In particular, Movimento per la Vita Torino refers to the space in its 2023 documentation as a “listening center room with a meeting hall for a motherhood school.” That same year, Promozione Vita instead reported that the help desk was not active, but described it as a “contact point for users, thanks to the informational materials available there.” In the project proposal funded by the Region for 2025, Movimento per la Vita Torino further states that it will use the funds for “identifying mothers struggling with pregnancy or raising newborn children,” a service that “will be implemented through active online monitoring, the help desk at Mauriziano Hospital in Turin, and the distribution of outreach materials in Turin hospitals with maternity wards.”
The Overlap Between Movimento per la Vita and Promozione Vita
As revealed by the analysis of documents obtained through freedom of information requests, the room at Mauriziano Hospital is co-managed by two associations that do not always clearly inform the Region whether the help desk – through which they claim to implement projects funded by the grant – is actually active or not.
Movimento per la Vita Torino and Promozione Vita don’t just overlap in this area. They also share the same operating address and phone number. While the associations currently have different presidents, the current president of Movimento per la Vita Torino previously served as president of Promozione Vita, at one point holding both roles simultaneously.
The two associations are further linked by shared project partners cited in official documentation, as well as by their collaborations with another city hospital, Maria Vittoria, and with ASL To5, the local health authority serving the southern suburbs of Turin. At these sites, the associations claim to carry out psychiatric and psychological counseling services for women. A common trait they share – also typical of most recipients of the Fondo Vita Nascente – is the vagueness in reporting how the funds have been used.
Use of Funds and Relationship with Local Services
Between 2022 and 2023, the 15 associations benefiting from the fund requested lower budgets than the amounts they actually received from the Region, which consistently exceeded the figures presented in their applications. In their financial reports, the anti-abortion associations state that they spent most of the funds on utility bills, building maintenance fees, household appliances, baby formula and diapers – but also on “adult food,” “heavy women’s shoes,” and “small expenses.” In many cases, women are referred to the Movimento per la Vita centers through parishes, social services, and public offices, which – according to the obtained documents – frequently direct women to these centers based on a “direct agreement.”
At the same time, the descriptions associations provide about the women they assist vary widely: some only report the total number of users, others include details about their background or family situation – but none define access or eligibility criteria for receiving financial aid. Among the associations that do describe the cases they have handled, three report that some of the women they assisted were survivors of domestic violence. In certain instances, women were referred by social services after leaving their partners with their children. These women were housed in hotels paid for by the associations and, in some cases, were given money to purchase basic necessities. As noted in the financial reports, by leaving their partners, the women had lost “all sources of income.”
Silvia Lorenzino, a lawyer who works with anti-violence centers and provides training on gender-based violence, considers this situation particularly alarming: “What seems to be happening is that women who are victims of violence, and who are in situations of hardship and economic dependence on their partners, are being inappropriately referred – by the very social services that should guide them correctly – to anti-abortion associations, instead of being informed about their right to seek help from anti-violence centers. As a result, these anti-abortion associations end up dealing with survivors of violence without having any training or preparation on the issue.”
According to Lorenzino, this deprives women of access to resources they are entitled to – such as the reddito di libertà (freedom income) – and of appropriate support pathways: “Anti-abortion associations do not allow these women to pursue self-determination through structured paths of emancipation that could help them escape physical, psychological, and economic violence.”
The Influence of Anti-Abortion Movements on the Future of Public Healthcare
While the number of family planning clinics (consultori) in Turin remains below the legal standard and under the national average, the funds allocated by the Region to anti-abortion associations risk being used to improperly replace essential public services, thereby increasing the influence of private interests.
For some time now, in Piedmont – as in the rest of Italy – there have been growing concerns about the progressive dismantling of community-based healthcare, along with the shrinking availability of access to contraception and voluntary termination of pregnancy. “The vacuum created by public institutions in healthcare services restricts the right to health and is gradually being filled by others – namely, so-called pro-life associations,” says Tullia Todros, a representative of the + di 194 voci network.
The Stanza dell’ascolto is just one example – though not the only one – of how anti-abortion associations are expanding their presence across Piedmont, with the backing of the region’s center-right political leadership. This shared goal is clearly outlined in the documents of projects funded by the Fondo Vita Nascente, where various local chapters of the Movimento per la Vita state their intention to strengthen partnerships with social services and ASLs, and to open new facilities in public hospitals and family planning clinics throughout the Region.
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