New Homophobia Low: Facebook Page Urges Aborting 'Gay' Unborn

LA REPUBBLICA (Italy)

ROME – Online homophobia has reached a new low in Italy where a Facebook page circulated this month with the declaration: "Aborting a gay (fetus) is an act of faith."

Rome daily La Repubblica reported that the Italian language Facebook account was opened on June 19 with this false claim: "Thanks to the miracle of science we are able to impede (homosexuality)…Yes, I know that it is terrible to abort the poor babies affected by the gene of sodomy. But it is the lesser evil." Updates followed with bogus reports of scientific studies that could determine homosexuality in the unborn, and invented would-be mothers adding posts about having to decide to abort after finding out their baby would be gay.

The virtual space generated more than 2,000 comments, mostly but not all critical, before Facebook closed the page after a week of protests from civil rights groups and politicians. Several noted that beyond the false news in the digital troll, there was also "incitement to abort." Gay rights activists noted that Italy has no law specifically punishing acts of homophobia.

"I put myself in the shoes of young gay people who must read these things," Paola Concia, a member of the Italian Parliament, told La Repubblica.

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Migrant Lives

Migration

What's Driving More Venezuelans To Migrate To The U.S.

With dimmed hopes of a transition from the economic crisis and repressive regime of Nicolas Maduro, many Venezuelans increasingly see the United States, rather than Latin America, as the place to rebuild a life..

Photo of a family of Migrants from Venezuela crossing the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum

Migrants from Venezuela crossed the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum.

David Peinado via Zuma Press

Julio Borges

-Analysis-

Migration has too many elements to count. Beyond the matter of leaving your homeland, the process creates a gaping emptiness inside the migrant — and outside, in their lives. If forced upon someone, it can cause psychological and anthropological harm, as it involves the destruction of roots. That's in fact the case of millions of Venezuelans who have left their country without plans for the future or pleasurable intentions.

Their experience is comparable to paddling desperately in shark-infested waters. As many Mexicans will concur, it is one thing to take a plane, and another to pay a coyote to smuggle you to some place 'safe.'

Venezuela's mass emigration of recent years has evolved in time. Initially, it was the middle and upper classes and especially their youth, migrating to escape the socialist regime's socio-political and economic policies. Evidently, they sought countries with better work, study and business opportunities like the United States, Panama or Spain. The process intensified after 2017 when the regime's erosion of democratic structures and unrelenting economic vandalism were harming all Venezuelans.