David Suzuki tells us that the Pope’s “pronouncement on birth control means the destruction of the planet.” (letter, October 17, 1990) It is said with all the arrogant finality of the secular humanist who denies the existence of God and instead confines his understanding of the world and its problems to what can be calculated. Suzuki is not alone in his narrow [...]
October 11 Wendell Watters, retired psychiatrist from McMaster University in Hamilton and an intrepid abortion activist, accuses Justice minister Kim Campbell of being a ventriloquist’s dummy for Brian Mulroney and not really “pro choice” at all. 2 Poland’s Senate votes overwhelmingly to re criminalize abortion (legal for 34 years), an act which the Canadian media deplore as proof of Roman Catholic backwardness. [...]
Charlottetown, PEI In mid-October, the Abortion Policy Review Committee of Queen Elizabeth Hospital released its recommendations. After 18 months of deliberations during which hundreds of briefs and lett6ers were considered, the committee recommended that abortion not be made available a QEH. “A hospital cannot do everything. It has to establish priorities and decide which among these many procedures it will make available.” [...]
Director of PEI’s hospitals attended an early October conference in Charlottetown. Efforts are being made to prepare them for the many tough decisions ahead, as the population ages and escalating health care costs continue to outdistance available health care dollars. No matter how small or carefully managed a hospital is a very expensive establishment. Furnishings are specially designed; equipment is increasingly hi-tech; [...]
In Canada, the Mulroney government has increased the annual subsidies for Planned Parenthood overseas by annual grants between seven and eight million dollars. (In 1988 the grant was $7,121,000.) PP’s policies overseas, needless to say, carry the same anti-familly7, anti-child message as those at home. The Canadian government also subsidizes other agencies with policies similar to Planned Parenthood’s. In August, the Canadian [...]
In mid-October, the Commonwealth Ministers responsible for Women’s Affairs met in Ottawa. The Honorable Mary Collins, Minister Responsible for the Status of Women, hosted the federally sponsored conference. Prime Minister Mulroney, also present at the conference, delivered a speech praising women’s achievements while lamenting the fact that “15 million of their babies die annually from entirely preventable diseases.” (Mr. Mulroney neglected, of [...]
As journalists and environmentalists tuned up for Earth Day, held around the world in May of this year, population growth was blamed for every supposed ill. For example, under the headline “People Pollution”, Ellen Goodman recently wrote what has become a commonplace: “The People Problem. It’s as if we talked about carbon-spewing cars without any drivers.” And she calls for solving the [...]
Letitia (not her real name), 58, living in Toronto, suffers with Prader-Willi Syndrome. I have known her for years; she enjoys life, goes to the movies (she’s a real movie buff) and chats it up with friends. She is one out of every 10,000 babies born who are afflicted with this rare overeating syndrome. If it isn’t controlled, Prader-Willi Syndrome can lead [...]
Despite the real possibility that Bill C-43, if passed, could be used for “search for and destroy” the mentally handicapped unborn, Diane Richler, Executive Vice-President of the Canadian Association for Community Living says the Toronto-based organization Association does not take a stand on abortion. In an interview with The Interim, Ms. Richter stated that the criteria for aborting handicapped babies would be [...]
Carlos Bedate, S.J., a molecular biologist at a university in Spain, and Robert Cefalo, a doctor of medicine at the University of North Carolina, have written a provocative article in the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy in which they claim that the zygote (the one-cell stage of human life) is not a person. This claim has obvious ethical implications for moral discussion [...]
Ottawa Father Tony Van Hee, S.J. resumed his daily vigil and fast for the unborn on the day Parliament re-opened, September 24, (see “Freedom squashed, The Interim, April 1990.) Bill C-43 has yet to receive Senate approval, leaving the chance that it may still be defeated. Also, on the Hill is Glen Kealey, a bankrupt businessman who is protesting alleged government corruption. [...]
Three judges of the Ontario Divisional Court – Mr. Justice Patrick Hartt, Mr. Justice David Henry and Mr. Justice Douglas Coo upheld an injunction November 7, forbidding Cambridge protestors from distributing literature describing two Cambridge abortionists as “killing unborn babies.” The injunction had been confirmed earlier by Madam Justice Mabel Van Camp, in September 1989. The original injunction was issued by Madam [...]
Canada’s Minister of Justice, Ms. Kim Campbell, verified pro-lifers’ worst fears about the government’ new abortion law, Bill C-43. On October 29, Ms. Campbell issued a new Department of Justice document, reassuring doctors that they have absolutely nothing to fear. The paper concerns “The philosophy and principles underlying Canada’s proposed new legislation on abortion. General principle The “proposed law…is brief and straight-forward [...]
Science writer Stephen Strauss gave two excellent examples of how numbers can mislead in the Globe and Mail for November 10. On October 19, a Toronto AIDS conference was told that women were the fastest-growing AIFDS risk group, and the last to accept that they are at risk. Fifty per cent of the women infected with the virus, it was reported, contracted [...]
Sexual equality and respect for women are the keys to ending wife assault, the Ontario government says. Anne Swarbrick, the NDP government’s Minister of Women’s Issues, is convinced that education, women’s services and women gaining control over their lives will stop this crime. Hence the government will extend a five-year anti-violence program and start a province-wide education campaign to teach the public [...]