In mid-April, Italian voters returned former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to power. Election post-mortems focused on what Berlusconi would do about the economy, crime, and Italy’s illegal immigration problem.

Just about the only thing that was not discussed was an issue that figured prominently in the campaign: abortion.

“Abortion to play a prominent role in Italian elections” was the headline of an Associated Press headline only two months ago. A contemporaneous New York Times story told readers that the abortion issue was at the “center of the Italian electoral campaign.”

And only a week before the Italian elections, the Los Angeles Times proclaimed that the “abortion issue [was] back” in Italy and Spain.

All of these stories described the mounting political and cultural challenges to the 1981 Italian law legalizing abortion. Now, Berlusconi’s spokeswoman on family issues proposes a new abortion law restricting abortion only to the first trimester—and then, only in “really justified cases.”

Then there is the case of Giuliano Ferrara, whom the New York Times says “combines the political theatrics of an Abbie Hoffman with the rhetorical flair of a William F. Buckley.” A former Communist, Ferrara now edits a conservative newspaper called Il Foglio, “the Sheet.”

Ferrara used his paper and talk show to advocate a moratorium on abortion and “to call attention to the value of life.” He then ran for Parliament on the “Abortion? No Thanks” slate.

This is not the first time Ferrara has bucked conventional secular wisdom. His paper has also supported the Catholic Church on matters like bioethics, relativism, and the decline of the Christian faith among Italians—this despite the fact that Ferrara is an atheist. Continued...