Lately, Naples has made the press for the trash piled high to the sky. But just this week, it was the scene of a far more ghastly mess, lurking just below the surface and in the hearts of men. Like Mt. Vesuvius, it unleashed its toxins which had been building up over the last 30 years -- when the Abortion Law 194 gave women in Italy the Right to Choose.

This new Pope, from Day 1 has never ceased to talk about an unborn fetus' right to "life". His voice pieces in the (secular) Italian press keep the issue burning on high. But, in a country quite lax about following the other dictates from the Pope's Throne (or Bully Pulpit, if you will), the abortion issue for some reason resonates with the powers that be (read: men) across the peninsula and soon it's on the front pages of newspapers and being debated on TV.

But this last week, the Pope and his crusaders upped the ante; bringing down an unprecedented onslaught in the battle for women’s rights. The battle is all the more dangerous given elections for Prime Minister in April. This was not any hypocritical diatribe against say, condoms or euthanasia (the previous Pope had in fact, been euthanized). What has taken place in Italy is far far worse and will have repercussions wherever the Christian Taliban (as I like to refer to them) has a hold; even on American soil.

First, the Pope came out and stated that Doctors have the moral obligation to save aborted fetuses; even those already stillborn, fetuses developing without craniums or those who would never live outside the uterus.

Then, in Naples, Italian police stormed a hospital during an abortion in progress; violating the woman’s privacy and attempting to implicate the doctor for 'feticide' (the fetus was already dead in the womb and was being extracted to save the mother). They had supposedly received a tip that there was an illegal abortion in progress; although it was clear from the get go that all was operating appropriately under the law.

Forced into sharing her personal drama with a bunch of policemen, the woman was traumatized to no end. Fortunately, this ‘incident’ has brought out thousands of women demonstrators into the piazzas throughout the country to defend their rights. Journalists and opinion leaders have come out on both sides of the issue; some applauding the shakedown, and many politicians, upholding what is, in fact, Italian law.

I might mention here that the (Italian) police (not Vatican guards), were acting at the behest of a Head of State from a country which is not Italy.

Keep your eyes on Italy, where we're on the front lines of a raging battle for Women's Right to Choose since the law came into being in 1978.
What plays out here, in the backyard of the only all-male Theocracy on Earth, will have repercussions around the globe.