Daughter of one of the founders of the Partito Radicale, Franco Roccella, and the painter and feminist Wanda Raheli, she spent her childhood in Sicily, entrusted to her grandparents and an aunt, and then joined her parents in Rome for schooling. 

 She became a feminist to “transfer the authority that women had in private life to the public sphere”. At the age of 18, she joined the Movimento di liberazione della donna and became its leader. During those years, she advocated for many feminist causes, such as abortion, violence against women, the modification of family law, and for equal opportunities. In 1975, she published the book “Aborto: facciamolo da noi” with a foreword by Adele Faccio. 

 In the 1979 general elections, she was a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies in the Rome-Viterbo-Latina-Frosinone constituency for the Partito Radicale, obtaining 292 preferences but not being elected.   

Graduated in Modern Literature, she holds a Ph.D. from La Sapienza University.  Since 2000, she has been a professional journalist, registered with the Order of Journalists of Lazio.   She departed from the Radicali and switched to the Catholic wing of the PdL (Polo delle Libertà)

 She distanced herself from active politics for twenty years to focus on her family, two children, an aunt, and her parents. She underwent a profound change while still maintaining much of her cultural background. Derived from feminism, for example, were the interest in biopolitics and the transformations introduced by biotechnology in the field of reproduction. 

 In the 1990s, she left the Radicali, guilty, according to her, of pursuing battles that are leading to the destruction of the individual, and anti-individual consequences of their individualism, and of promoting an idea of limitless freedom that only results in “absolute unfreedom”. 

 In 1997, she wrote “La leadership di Berlusconi” a radiography of an event edited by Domenico Mennitti. 

 She became a columnist for the newspaper Avvenire and collaborated with Il Foglio, Il Giornale, and the bimonthly political and cultural magazine Ideazione, mainly addressing bioethical issues. 

 Together with Lucetta Scaraffia, she edited the “Dizionario biografico Italiane. Dall’Unità d’Italia alla prima guerra mondiale” published in three volumes in 2004 by thePresidency of the Council of Ministers. The dictionary presents 247 portraits of Italian women who have made history, including Rachele Mussolini and Claretta Petacci, following the criteria previously adopted by Miriam Mafai in her work “Le donne del Novecento”. She also co-authored “Contro il cristianesimo. L’ONU e l’Unione europea come nuova ideologia” with Lucetta Scaraffia (Edizioni Piemme, 2005). 

 She co-wrote “La favola dell’aborto facile. Miti e realtà della pillola Ru486” with Assuntina Morresi (FrancoAngeli, 2006).