An anti-abortion protest in Madrid shakes the web

Anti-abortion protest in Madrid
 
On Saturday tens of thousands of campaigners- more than a million according to organisers, marched in Madrid in protest of a possible modification of the Spanish abortion law. An event which has the world blogosphere talking.

Many amateur videos illustrating the extent of the mobilisation in the Spanish capital quickly appeared on share sites. Protesters chanted the slogan, ‘every life matters’, and were mainly protesting against the socialist government’s plan to authorise abortion up until the fourteenth week of pregnancy.

And in the run up to the march, several anti abortion groups used the web to broadcast videos such as these, denouncing the procedure and comparing it to murder. The videos also warn women about dangers linked to voluntary terminations.

This net user from Quebec is unable to understand the mobilisation. For him, participants in protests such as this, forget to consider the right of women to conduct themselves as they choose. And he feels it is now time that Spanish mentalities changed. 

A point of view shared by these Catholic organisations from the American continent, campaigning for a woman’s’ right to a free choice. This female Peruvian campaigner feels abortion should not be considered as a religious issue, but rather one of public health. She asserts that women who terminate pregnancies often do so as they have no other choice.

The balloon boy
 
It was, in fact a hoax, orchestrated by his parents in the hope of being selected for a TV reality show! Last Thursday, America was made to believe that six year old Falcon Heene has drifted off by accident in a helium balloon, when he was simply hiding in a cardboard box. 

This is currently one of the most discussed subjects on Twitter and net users are expressing their indignation. This user states that Falcon’s parents should be ashamed of using their child in this way.

The blogosphere is even more scandalised by the fact that bloggers found this video, filmed by the child’s parents, on Youtube. We see their three sons singing a rap song with explicitly homophobic lyrics.

Nevertheless, the ‘boy in the balloon’ has become a web icon. T-shirts and mugs are already on sale on the Net.

And net users have even dedicated several parodic songs to him in which they describe his imaginary misadventures. 
 

Others employed irony to create these photomontages about the incident. This one for example, calls on Americans to remember the day in which they all stopped working to watch an empty balloon floating in the sky.

And this online game offers net users a chance to embody the famous, ‘balloon boy’. The aim is to remain in the air and waste as much public money as possible by scrambling helicopters to search for you.