In February of last year, Italian Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin referred to her country as “dying” due to the nation’s abysmal birth rate. She reported that fewer babies were born in Italy in 2014 than in any previous year since 1861:
We are very close to the threshold of non-renewal where the people dying are not replaced by newborns. That means we are a dying country.
Now, Lorenzin is encouraging Italy’s women to get pregnant. Sounds sensible — but only if you believe in outdated notions like … “sensible.”
Lorenzin’s campaign has somehow outraged Italy’s Social Justice Warriors:
The reaction has been fierce, with many questioning if there is not a better way to encourage people to have children — by promoting employment policy, for example, and by helping the economy to grow more after many years of recession. Only in the last six months has Italy started to recover from a long period of economic trouble. But growth is slow and unemployment is still very high — over 40% — among the under-25s.
It’s that age group that also feels put out. One of the slogans, “reproducing is the best way for young couples to be creative”, has been roundly condemned by many newspapers including La Repubblica, La Stampa and even Il Giornale — with headlines such as “The web attacks the health minister for her slogan: We need to make more children.”
But it is the use of the images and what they say about the place of women in Italy that has offended so many people, including those who choose not to have children for their own reasons. Why should they be discriminated against? The recent law on civil unions approved by the Italian parliament a few weeks ago gave many the impression that the state had finally accepted a broader idea of the family, but now this campaign puts the emphasis back on discrimination. Women are targeted by this fertility campaign, as if they were the only people responsible for the declining birthrate that has been affecting Italy for many years.
People, learn from this incident: there is literally nothing you can do to please a leftist.
Look elsewhere around the internet today, you’ll probably find the left denigrating the need for a man to be in a woman’s or a child’s life within the scope of 17 other issues.
But only on this issue, during this week — but who knows, it’s only Tuesday — the left declares that minimizing a man’s responsibility for child-rearing is horribly sexist. And its only sexist against women, because being sexist against men isn’t possible, because shut up.
For decades, radical feminists have done everything they possibly could to push men out of the decision-making process of childbirth in the West. So the Italian government followed their lead, and solely addressed women on the issue of declining birthrates — and got an earful anyway!
Women in most Western countries can have an abortion on demand with no input from the father. Lie to a man, even rape him, do anything to get impregnated, the man still can end up on the hook for child support. Regardless of his wishes or his actions at any point.
But how dare the Italian government urge the gender that actually can get pregnant and has been granted sole authority over all pregnancy decisions to consider getting pregnant without also consulting men, because … because shut up, probably.
To Social Justice Warriors, it’s not really about justice. It’s just about power and bullying.
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