Maria Laurino Presents Book “The Price of Children” at the Casa Italiano Zerilli-Marimò at NYU

Maria Laurino’s book, originally published in Italian under the title, “Il prezzo degli Innocenti”, was presented in New York University’s Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò. “The Price of Children” is an exploration into the deep, complex history of the power dynamic of church and state over women’s bodily autonomy in Italy. Although Laurino’s book finds its roots in the historical nature of this relationship in Italy, it explores this existing dynamic in America as well; drawing ties between similar patriarchal views of women’s bodies in both of these countries.

Laurino, who spent five years partaking in archival research, explores in depth a program that existed in Italy from the 1950s to the 1970s that encouraged young mothers, most of whom were poor, uneducated, or had been the victims of rape, to give up their children in order to avoid bringing shame to their families. This program was furthered under Pope Pius XII, who encouraged a relationship between Italy and US that would facilitate an adoption program that placed Italian children of single mothers into Catholic, American families. The nature of this program was yet again altered in 1950 when the US congress affirmed Italy’s adoption program to expand to include children of one parent that were unable to give them care. This was almost always single mothers who were shamed into giving up their children. Single mothers would give their children up to orphanages in hopes of returning for them when they were older and more stable, but when they returned, their children had most often been sent to the United States for adoption.

This adoption system was very monetarily lucrative for those involved, and therefore, among many other socio-cultural reasons, the process continued. Laurino also explores the Safe Haven program in place in the United States, and analyzes how these programs are similar in the fact that it encourages mothers to carry their children to full term and give them up; rather than supporting them through providing access to abortion or help regarding childcare. In encouraging this, the Safe Haven Program has become a modern day system viewed as a way to discourage abortion.

Luciana Capretti writes for La Voce di New York that these practices encourage, “them to relinquish their babies, reducing them essentially to the role of reproducers – bodies to be used for the continuation of the species” (Capretti). Through programs such as these, ones that function under the guise of supporting women through encouraging them to relinquish them to adoption rather than provide support through options, patriarchal dynamics that harm women are upheld.

Sources:

“The price of children”: Maria Laurino e il potere di Chiesa e Stato sulle donne

-Samantha Wolfe