Emma Bonino, radical Italian politician who stood up to Vatican, dies aged 78

Militant feminist led campaigns to legalise abortion and divorce and went on to become foreign minister

Emma Bonino, the radical Italian politician who led campaigns to legalise abortion and divorce against the objections of the Vatican , has died aged 78.

“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 party she founded, More Europe , said on Facebook on Friday.

Bonino served as a European commissioner and as foreign minister in Italy but was best known as a militant feminist dedicated to political and humanitarian causes. “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,” her party said.

A former member of Italy’s Radical party, Bonino commanded respect across the political sphere . Italy’s far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, paid tribute to her, 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”.

Even after the Radicals’ political star faded, Bonino remained a key political figure and human rights campaigner active in Italy for more than five decades. With her sharp wit and cutting insights, she appeared frequently on Italian TV. After a cancer diagnosis in 2015, she would appear in public wearing colourful headscarves.

Bonino first got involved in Italian politics after she became pregnant aged 26 and had an abortion, even though it was illegal at that time. “I decided that never, never, never again should anyone have to suffer this humiliation,” shesaid.

She went on to hand herself in to the police, turning her private “offence” into a ⁠public act of defiance. The arrest ⁠made headlines, fuelling a campaign that eventually ​led to the legalisation of abortion in 1978. It also launched Bonino into parliament with the Radical party, a small but relentless force for civil rights.

During her 50-year political career, Bonino served as foreign minister, trade minister and EU affairs minister in Italian centre-left governments of the 2000s and 2010s. She remained an outspoken supporter of Europe and the rights of refugees and migrants.

“You can look at the fights I have waged with this point of view: I support a democratic liberal order and believe in the centrality of the individual, his rights but also his responsibilities,” she told the Guardian in 2018.

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. 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 would 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.