Quote:Reuters Wrote:
(Reuters) - Italy's prime minister on Thursday poured cold water on a campaign promoted by his health minister aimed at convincing couples to have more children.
"I don't know of any of my friends who had kids after they saw an advertisement," Matteo Renzi said in a radio interview.
He was speaking a day after the ministry announced it would host meetings in four cities to encourage couples to have children. Italy has an aging population and the fertility rate in Italy last year was 1.35 children per woman, compared with an EU average of 1.6.
In 2015, fewer babies were born in Italy than in any year since the modern state was founded 154 years ago, and the population shrank for the first time in three decades.
"If you want to create a society that invests in its future and has children, you have to make sure the underlying conditions are there," such as making sure the parents have stable jobs and day-care services, Renzi said.
Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin launched the campaign on Wednesday with the @FertilityDay Twitter handle and a series of online ads.
One pictured a woman holding an hourglass next to the words: "Beauty has no age limit. Fertility does." Another pictured a man holding a half-burned cigarette. "Don't let your sperm go up in smoke," it said.
The Fertility Day campaign also set off criticism on social media for appearing to blame women for putting off child-bearing, and for appearing not to understand the real causes for Italy's low birth rate.
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN11757W
Basically, lefties are calling the effort sexist and fascist.
Apparently it has gone viral and spawned a bunch of spoof memes.
If only you knew how bad things really are.