Winning in the Parliament, losing in the Courts – Catholic biopolitics in different venues: the case of Italy

Abstract

<p>The catholic bio-politics, in recent years, addressed a variety of issues. In this contribution<br> I focus specifically on assisted reproduction and stem cell research in order to<br> analyse the Catholic neo-feminist discourse, and the complex interplay of discursive<br> arenas. Namely, I focus the attention on the reconfiguration of religious discourse<br> in terms of attention to feminism and gender rights, on the one side, and discursive<br> opportunity structures in terms of venues’ opportunities and constraints on the other.<br> The analysis underlined two main elements. First of all, in relation to the process of<br> judicialization of politics, the analysis pointed out the different opportunities and constraints<br> characterizing the different venues. Namely, judicialization of politics and venue<br> shopping are not favourable the same way for all the actors. Second, a neo-conservative<br> frame of revolutionary maternity gained large room in the Italian political sphere, and it<br> is likely to gain even more resonance in light of the current debate on surrogacy, related<br> to the never-ending discussion on the forms of regulation of same-sex couples in Italy.</p>