My darling baby: As your existence becomes more evident, people have begun asking questions about you. When you are due? Are you a boy or a girl? Have you picked out names? Choosing a name for you has led to many discussions in our house. We want to chose just the right name for you, that will bring you pride, that we [...]
Did Ontario Premier Ernie Eves make a terrible goof when he canned Tourism Minister Cam Jackson recently for billing taxpayers $103,000 over 28 months, when high-living "Toronto boulevardier" Ernie's spending habits make Cam look like a tightwad? In February, I reported in great detail Ernie's love of milking the taxpayer - including his platinum MPP pension trough of $810,000 received in 1997. [...]
A right to abortion can be argued under self-defence, since the fetus is threatening the woman's health, autonomy, future, and maybe life. -Joyce Arthur, Pro-Choice Action Network, Aug. 9, 2002I was recently reading a fascinating exchange between California lawyer Keith Bray and our loveable "I never met an abortion I didn't like" Joyce Arthur. This past summer, Keith made the offer of [...]
On Oct. 5, the Museum of Sex opened in New York City. Sponsored by private funds (reportedly not from the misnamed "adult entertainment industry"), MoSex, as the museum is called, has a rather narrow view of what constitutes sex. Missing from its first exhibit, NYC Sex: How New York City Transformed Sex in America, is any hint of heterosexuality. Instead the focus [...]
The now routine use of integrated prenatal screening - the diagnostic testing of children in utero - has had disastrous, even fatal consequences. Doctors are able to identify more than 500 genetic diseases and illness; unfortunately, many of these ailments are not treatable. Many jurisdictions in Europe, the United States and Canada are reporting either a slight decline in abortion numbers or [...]
Where to Park your Broomstick: A Teen's Guide to Witchcraft by Lauren Manoy (Simon and Schuster, $21, 309 pages) "Men have lost touch with our primal selves, the part of us that ran in the wilderness. We lost our connection to the Horned God, our primal Father." This strange passage appears on page 233 of Where to Park Your Broomstick: A Teen's [...]
Taiwan promotes larger families Peru weakens protection for unborn Call to end spermicide use Guernsey moves toward euthanasia Taiwan promotes larger families TAIPEI - The Taiwanese ministry of the interior and the council for cconomic planning and development have proposed incentives to encourage couples to have more than two children. The inducements include payments of about $855 to couples with at least [...]
The National television news program has reported that Paladin Labs, the manufacturer of the "morning-after" pill Plan B, is lobbying Health Canada to have the drug made more easily available to women. Paladin would like Plan B sold "over-the-counter," without a doctor's prescription. It is being joined in its efforts by the Society for Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Canadian Pharmacists' Association, [...]
The Greek Orthodox Church has taken a bold stand against the Socialist government's law regulating artificial insemination. The law is one that Archbishop Christodoulos, the head of the Orthdox church in Greece, has labelled a sop to the feminist movement, which he says seeks to undermine the family and to "overthrow the natural and ethical order." The church opposes in-vitro fertilization and [...]
In our culture, turning 30 is an important milestone. But unlike those who dread the idea of beginning one's third decade, I've wanted to turn 30 since my late teens. I had rebelled against the infantile beliefs of youth that led to sayings such as "Don't trust anyone over 30." Youth has long excused frivolity, but I escaped such a condition when [...]
Back in 1215, England's King John made legal history when he bowed to the will of his barons and signed the Magna Carta. John bound himself and his "heirs forever" to grant "to all freemen of our kingdom" the rights and liberties the charter described, including the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury, and the right to [...]
Former TV talk show host Rosie O'Donnell's magazine Rosie is closing its doors. O'Donnell claims it is because of loss of control of the enterprise, but as Kelly Boggs says in the Baptist Press, it is more likely because the middle America moms to whom Rosie is marketed stopped buying it when O'Donnell announced she was a lesbian. The drop from as [...]
Ever since CTV aired The Sopranos' first season against CBC's coverage of the 2000 Summer Olympics, I've contended that gritty and raw as it is, in terms of all-round writing brilliance, acting quality, dramatization, and production values, it simply eclipses everything else on the small screen. The only shows that come close in quality and depth are Dick Wolf's durable Law and [...]
Torontonians who disapprove of lewd conduct and public nudity should steer clear of the city's annual "gay pride" parade, because the authorities are reluctant to enforce their own laws. In September, the Crown decided not to prosecute seven nude men arrested in the June parade on the grounds there was "no reasonable prospect for conviction." According to lawyer and Totally Naked Toronto [...]
There were no heads of state, paparazzi or crowds of people from various interest groups trying to get into the UN meeting on cloning, Sept. 23-27. It did not have the pomp or circumstance surrounding it as other conferences have had. For onlookers who did not know what was going on, it could have been just another day at the UN. For [...]