The mandate of the Law Reform Commission, created by the federal government in 1972, as a permanent and independent body, is to review and reform the federal laws of Canada. The goal of the Commission is to promote laws which are “modern, principled, rational, comprehensive, egalitarian, and readily intelligible to ordinary citizens as well as to lawyers and judges.’ Over the last [...]
The strategy called Operation Rescue has been with Canadians for six months. In future issues The Interim will discuss some of its features such as civil disobedience, non-violence and lawbreaking. But the moment, we note that Operation Rescue’s purpose is political and its method religious. Rescuers point to the American civil rights movement of the sixties as a forerunner. Like pre-born babies [...]
On Friday, March 10, 1989, the Metro Toronto Police Commission denied the appeal initiated in January 1988 by 10-year police force veteran Constable David Packer against his dismissal from the Toronto police force. In April 1987, the father of five children refused to obey an order assigning him to patrol outside the Morgentaler abortuary. In January 1988, Toronto Police Superintendent Bernard Nadeau [...]
On Tuesday, March 9, the Supreme Court of Canada decided not to decide whether pre-born babies have rights. The Court ruled is was “not in the public interest” to belabour what it called “a hypothetical point.” The justices based the ruling on the fact that three of Borowski’s five major points concerned Section 251 of the Criminal Code – struck down by [...]
Following the Supreme Court judgment of March 9, the two national pro-life bodies, Alliance for Life (educational) and Campaign Life Coalition (political) demanded, 0“Parliament exercise its obligation and pass a law protecting all unborn children.” At press conferences in Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver, pro-life representatives called for Canadian law to catch up with science and recognize and protect “the unmistakable humanity of [...]
Jim and Karen Hanlon of Langley, B.C., and David Forsyth of Port Moody, B.C., decided to accept a further three months of imprisonment in witness against the killing of the unborn. The decision to block Everywoman’s Health Abortuary again on March 7 was made immediately after spending 27 days in jail awaiting trial. On March 6, Justice Josiah Wood had imposed a [...]
On February 23, 44 Operation Rescuers who had spent two weeks in prison, together with 61 who had not, came to trial. Judge Josiah Wood soon ruled they would face criminal contempt of court charges, instead of civil ones. What he had heard from counsel and police, he said, made it clear that the protesters deliberately obstructed access to the clinic. Such [...]
The latest recommendations of the Law Reform Commission (LRC) on abortion would allow abortion on demand if implemented by the federal government. The Commission has recommended an approach to what they term “protection of the fetus.” It would allow abortion for any physical or psychological reason until the 22nd week of pregnancy, and under slightly more restricted circumstances thereafter. Government statistics show [...]
After trying four years to get in on the federal handouts to women’s groups, REAL Women (Realistic, Equal, Active for Life) has been promised a grant of $21,212 from the Secretary of State for an Ottawa Conference entitled “Equality Revised.” Government grants to women’s groups amount to over $12 million a year. They are given exclusively to those who accept the feminist [...]
St. Paul lives on in Rev. Paul Schenck, a convert from Judaism. Schenck is the Pastor of the 2,000 member New Covenant Tabernacle, in Tonawanda, New York. One third of his congregation consists of converts from Judaism, He has a Friday night service based on the Jewish synagogue ritual for them, and as he describes it, all of them attend the “generic” [...]
Over the years, The Interim has received so many questions concerning rape and abortion, that this month Miss Prestwich has decided to devote her entire column to the issue. Editor I don’t believe in abortion, but surely rape is a special case. Why should a woman have to suffer twice? No one can deny that forcible rape is one of the most [...]
Toronto, Ont. – Feminists celebrated International Women’s Day by dumping a coffin and hundreds of coat hangers on the doorstep of the Campaign Life Coalition office in downtown Toronto. Some 1000 young women carrying banners and chanting such slogans as “Free abortion on demand” participated in the daylong rally. “If these people (the pro-lifers) had their way, it would be back to [...]
Sometimes the demands of pro-life involvement in Canada are such that I barely pay attention to what is going on in other areas of the world. Along with countless others, I am sure, I have only half paid attention to the policies of “perestroika” and “glasnost” advocated by Soviet leader Gorbachev. My interest is quickly aroused, however, when other events and issues [...]
The Ayatollah Khomeini, spiritual leader of Iran, made the front pages for weeks in February for ordering the execution of British author Salman Rushdie. Rushdie’s offense? In the pages of his most recent novel, The Satanic Verses, Rushdie mocked the Moslem faith. Khomeini’s violent reaction was denounced by governments and attacked by writers and authors. As it turned out, many used the [...]
Henry Morgentaler was in Winnipeg, in February, to attend a pro-abortion “celebration” in his honour and to launch a court case against the Manitoba government. Premier Filmon’s Conservative government has refused to authorize medicare payments for abortions performed in Morgentaler-style abortuaries. As in New Brunswick, Morgentaler will argue in Manitoba’s Court of Queen’s Bench, that refusal to pay for abortions in his [...]