Emma Bonino, leader of the abortion battle that changed Italy, dies at 78

ROME (AP) — Emma Bonino, who rose to political prominence in the 1970s as a leader of the Radical Party campaign to legalize abortion in heavily Roman Catholic Italy over the objections of the Vatican, has died. She was 78.

Her party of recent years, +Europa, announced her death.

“Her life was a long struggle against everything that denies freedom: against clandestine abortion, world hunger, the stranglehold of party politics, female genital mutilation, punitive justice, genocide, and every form of authoritarianism,” the party said.

Italy ’s conservative Premier Giorgia Meloni paid tribute to Bonino, saying their different backgrounds and perspectives "never prevented me from acknowledging her significance and her role in our nation’s public life."

“For decades, Emma Bonino has been a strong and recognizable voice in Italian politics, championing her ideas with determination," Meloni wrote on social media.

Even after the Radicals’ political star faded, Bonino remained a key political figure and human rights campaigner active in Italy for over five decades. She served as a European commissioner for then-Premier Silvio Berlusconi and was a co-founder of the death penalty watchdog Hands Off Cain. But her bid in 1999 to become Italy’s first female president failed.

She remained known to younger generations as a sought-after political pundit, appearing frequently on Italian TV with her sharp wit and cutting insights. After her cancer diagnosis in 2015, she invariably appeared in public wearing colorful headscarves.

Bonino’s passing follows the recent death of several other feminist heroes, including activist Gloria Steinem and poet Robin Morgan.

Born on March 9, 1948, in Bra — not far from the northwestern Italian city of Turin, where carmaker Fiat’s factory drove the economy — she spent her childhood on a farm, where she was often tasked with pasturing pigs, a lifestyle she described as “deadly boring” in a 2023 TV interview.

Bonino first got involved in Italian politics because she wanted to change the law. At 26, she became pregnant and had an abortion, even though it was illegal at that time.

Recalling the experience as one of the most humiliating of her life, in 1975 she was among the founders of the Information Center for Sterilization and Abortion, an organization that provided information and performed abortions before they were legalized.

The following year she was elected to the Italian parliament for the maverick Radical Party, a bastion of anticlericalism, civil libertarianism, feminism, liberalism and radicalism in Italy.

The party proposed itself as the strongest opposition to the Italian political establishment, seen as corrupt and conservative, and to the Catholic Church’s extensive influence on Italian society.

In 1978 abortion was legalized. That particular campaign may have been over, but Bonino had found her vocation: Politics was her life, and she became one of the most active leaders of the Radical Party and its successors.

A veteran legislator in Italian politics and an activist for various reform policies, she was elected six times as a Lower House lawmaker and two times as a senator. In 2017, she became the leader of +Europa, a liberal, European federalist party slate she launched ahead of the 2018 Italian general election.

An explosive presence in politics during her 50-year-long career, Bonino was one of the few Italian political figures who scored important achievements both at home and internationally.

Bonino won European exposure in a role she owed to then center-right Premier Berlusconi who, in 1995, offered her one of Italy’s two seats in the European Commission.

As a Commissioner she forged the EU’s consumer protection policy and created the European Commission Humanitarian Office, which is now the primary European humanitarian arm. It was this last portfolio, the humanitarian affairs, that she felt most strongly about.

She traveled to war zones — former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sudan, Afghanistan — and convinced Europe that humanitarian assistance couldn’t be an excuse for lack of political or military intervention.

In June 1999 she headed a slate named after her — Lista Bonino — at the European elections. It was an overwhelming success: The party got 8.5% of the votes and became Italy’s fourth political force.

Bonino served as foreign minister, trade minister and EU affairs minister in Italian center-left governments of the 2000s and 2010s.

She was one of the strongest advocates for a common European foreign and defense policy. “My passion is humanity,” she said in May 2025, when her hometown Bra granted her honorary citizenship. “I’ve got roots, I’ve got a homeland, a family, but precisely all that allows me to be a citizen of the world.”

She got involved with Arab women’s battle for equality in 2001 and started spending half her time in Cairo. She became fluent in Arabic — she had graduated in foreign languages at Milan’s Bocconi University — and built a network of intellectuals, politicians and prominent civil society figures.

Never married, she maintained strong bonds with her family in Piedmont. “My father died before I could show him I could accomplish something,” she recalled in a 2020 interview with Vanity Fair. “He never understood my restlessness. He used to tell me: Emma, you are like Japanese poetry: beautiful, but I can’t understand it.”

In January 2015, she announced on Radio Radicale that she was suffering from lung cancer and was being treated with chemotherapy but didn’t plan to stop her political activity. In May of the same year, she said her cancer was in complete remission and eight years later appeared on a popular TV interview program announcing she was healed.

Over the years, Bonino cultivated a deep friendship with the late Pope Francis, despite their conflicting views on key ethical issues, including abortion and euthanasia.

In November 2024, Francis paid a home visit to Bonino — who had been just released from the hospital after treatment for respiratory problems — bringing her a bouquet of roses and chocolates.

A photo posted by Bonino on social media showed them both sitting in wheelchairs on her sun-drenched terrace in Rome.

Bonino said that during their conversations Francis always encouraged her to bring forward her humanitarian battles, defending those most in need.

When asked what battles she still needed to fight, Bonino used to say: “Many, too many. Human rights, world hunger, free scientific research ... Ten lives won’t be enough.”

Bonino is survived by her siblings, Domenica and Giovanni, and their children.

FILE -Emma Bonino, leader of the ' +Europa ' (More Europe) party, speaks ahead of the March 4 Italian political elections during a press conference at the Foreign Press Club in Rome, Friday, Feb. 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis, File)

FILE - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, poses with Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino and Italian Premier Enrico Letta ,on the occasion of their meeting at Chigi Palace government office, in Rome, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)

FILE -Italy's Emma Bonino speaks after receiving her honorary doctorate from the University of Brussels during a ceremony at Flagey in Brussels on Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)

FILE -Italian politicia Emma Bonino attends the recording of Italian State Television TV show "Vieni via con me" (Come away with me) in Milan, Italy, Monday, Nov. 22, 2010. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, File)

CLEVELAND (AP) — The Chicago White Sox faded from the postseason with hardly any offense.

After winning the first two games of their best-of-five AL Division Series against Cleveland, Chicago struck out 21 times and managed just three hits in a 2-0 defeat Saturday night that advanced the Guardians to an AL Championship Series matchup against Tampa Bay.

“We wanted it so bad, it hurts,” Chicago catcher Kyle Teel said, shaking his head.

José Ramírez hit a two-run homer off Sean Burke in the fourth inning, and the White Sox became the fourth team in major league history to lose a Division Series after winning the first two games on the road.

Chicago's 21 strikeouts were the most in a nine-inning postseason game and the most in any regular or postseason game since 1900.

Munetaka Murakami and Andrew Benintendi struck out four times each, and Teel and Chase Meidroth three times apiece.

“My intent was to win this game, win this series and fly to Tampa,” White Sox first baseman Munetaka Murakami said through interpreter Kenzo Yagi. “It's obviously disappointing. Losing this one, there is a lot to learn from it."

Chicago become the first team to each the playoffs after three straight 100-loss seasons. The White Sox swept Houston in the wild card round for their first postseason series win since their 2005 World Series championship.

Ramírez homered on a a knuckle-curve from Burke that was 0.74 feet above the ground.

“He made the right pitch in the right spot," Teel said. "It was a ball in the dirt and he just hit it out.”

The pitch Ramírez homered on was the the lowest hit for a home run in a postseason game since MLB Statcast started tracking in 2008.

“Obviously, it came down to one pitch and one mistake I made today,” Baker said. “He's a really good player. He's probably going to be in the Hall of Fame some day. But it's frustrating.”

Chicago outscored Cleveland 7-3 in the first two games and out-hit the Guardians 12-7. Over the final three games, Cleveland had a 20-8 advantage in runs and out-hit the White Sox 27-17.

"We’re all bummed and sad, knowing we probably should have got the job done,” Chicago shortstop Colton Montgomery said. “They dug deep and did what they did. That’s a good baseball team and they scrapped it out.”

Chicago batters struck out a Division Series record 75 times and hit .194 with runners in scoring position, going 1 for 18 in the last two games. The White Sox loaded the bases in the sixth inning before Erik Sabrowski relieved Williams and struck out Murakami.

“The last few games, there were some opportunities,” Meidroth said. “It stings because this is a family, a brotherhood we have here. We wanted to win for each other and for our fans. Man, there is no better place to play than Chicago and we wanted to keep going.”

See AP’s full MLB coverage here

Chicago White Sox pitcher Sean Burke reacts after a home run by Cleveland Guardians' José Ramírez during the fourth inning of Game 5 of baseball's American League Division Series, Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Phil Long)

Chicago White Sox first baseman Munetaka Murakami walks back to the dugout after striking out in the sixth inning of Game 5 of baseball's American League Division Series against the Cleveland Guardians, Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Chicago White Sox center fielder Brenton Doyle reacts after striking out in the third inning of Game 5 of baseball's American League Division Series against the Cleveland Guardians, Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Chicago White Sox second baseman Chase Meidroth dives for a ball hit by Cleveland Guardians' Chase DeLauter during the sixth inning of Game 5 of baseball's American League Division Series, Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Chicago White Sox first baseman Munetaka Murakami (5) and catcher Kyle Teel (8) watch from the dugout during the eighth inning of Game 5 of baseball's American League Division Series against the Cleveland Guardians, Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Phil Long)