Councillors in Milan have approved a plan to pay women not to have abortions. The decision, by one of Italy's most apparently secular cities, has underscored the influence Roman Catholic teaching continues to exert on the country's policymakers.
The Christian Democrat Party was dissolved in the early 1990s, but its former members remain active on both right and left.
On Tuesday they joined forces in the Milan council to provide a slim majority to a project opposed by the city's centre-right mayor, Gabriele Albertini.
Though some of the details remain vague, it would provide pregnant women in financial difficulties with hand-outs for three years after the birth of a child.
The sponsors of the measure say it will cost Milan's ratepayers between £375,000 and £750,000 a year.
There was a free vote on the issue, which cut across the usual divisions. Those opposing the plan included ex-Communists, a former neo-Fascist and several members of Silvio Berlusconi's free-market Forza Italia ('Come on Italy') party.
Mr Albertini said: 'The money would have been better spent on the voluntary organisations which already exist to help unmarried mothers.'
Ombretta Colli, another member of his majority group, accused the plan's supporters of 'monetarising motherhood'.
She said: 'I feel an anti-abortion campaign coming, and I don't like it.'
But Maurizio Lupi, one of her centre-right colleagues and a supporter of the plan, said: 'This is not a crusade against abortion but the affirmation of a valid principle which all adminstrations ought to respect - the defence of life.'
The measure was welcomed by the local Roman Catholic Church.
A spokesman for the Archbishop of Milan said: 'We already have organisations which are active in this area, but the fact that the council wants to get involved is a good thing - it creates a virtuous circle.'
The council's decision comes against a background of mounting alarm over the implications of Italy's low birth rate.
The number of births per woman of child-bearing age is the lowest in the world and there is concern that, in future, the active workforce will not be big enough to support the country's rapidly growing army of pensioners.
The broadly-based government which came into office last October, led by a former Communist, Massimo D'Alema, has already agreed to an additional maternity allowance.
Women without a job will get £75 a month for five months after the birth of a child. Until now, such payments have been restricted to working women.
One of the other ways in which Italy's future demographic difficulties are being tackled is by immigration. As Milan was holding its vote, the cabinet in Rome was approving the latest of numerous migrant amnesties. It will legalise the position of some 250,000 people who entered the country without permission.
