Over a two-week period late last year, abortionist and Humanist Association of Canada vice-president Henry Morgentaler twice attacked religion. At a Dec. 3 press conference, Morgentaler said the state should force the end of religious affiliations to hospitals. He said that their "biases" interfered with the "reproductive rights" of Canadian women and singled out Catholic teaching that abortion is a "serious sin" [...]
The backlash against Christmas-time political correctness For years, Christians have noticed - and some have even complained - of the increased secularization of the Christmas holiday. The nativity scene has been removed from public places and commercialization has taken root as the gifts we give to one another seem more important than God's great gift of his Son. Having tried to remove [...]
A woman charged in connection with a pepper spray attack on a Toronto crisis pregnancy counsellor last summer was due in court Dec. 23 for a hearing to set a trial date Carol Ann Trueman, an employee of the Stop 86 women's shelter in Toronto, was charged with assault with a weapon after Robert Hinchey of the Aid to Women agency was [...]
The House of Commons Standing Health Committee endorsed the federal government's proposed legislation on reproductive and experimental technologies just before MPs left for a six-week holiday that began just before Christmas. They made amendments, including disallowing compensation for surrogate mothers and limitting financial compensation for surrogate carriers and egg and sperm donors to "receipted expenses." The committee allowed rules to stand that [...]
Separate Canadian studies have found that use of birth control is linked to increased risk of cancer and HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. The Journal of the National Cancer Institute reports that Dr. Steven Narod, chair of breast cancer research at Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, has found that women who carry a certain gene should avoid [...]
'You shouldn't always believe what you read in newspapers' It is axiomatic that you shouldn't always believe what you read in the newspaper. And so it is with a recent National Post story, headlined by this screamer: "78% favour abortions rights." The poll of just 608 people, conducted by Compass and commissioned by Global and the Post, was part of a larger [...]
More than 130 parliamentarians from around the world met in Ottawa in November for a meeting to discuss global strategies to promote "reproductive rights" and "access to reproductive health care" (read: abortion). The meeting was hosted by the Canadian Association of Parliamentarians for Population and Development, headed by Jean Augustine, the secretary of state for multiculturalism and women's affairs, and co-sponsored by [...]
1. Government introduces reprotech bill After years of stalling, the federal government finally introduced Bill C-56, on May 9, the misnamed An Act Respecting Human Reproduction, regulating reproductive and experimental technologies. The bill, later renamed Bill C-15, clearly permitted without any real restrictions, embryonic stem cell research which always results in the death of a human being at the embryonic stage. Also, [...]
The Romanow Report on Health Care in Canada was issued Nov. 28, and pro-life leaders are criticizing the missed opportunity to free up healthcare funds by directing the provinces to de-list abortion. Pro-lifers note that abortion is not a medical necessity and therefore, should not be funded. Campaign Life Coalition national president Jim Hughes said that Romanow "did not look at, nor [...]
Fr. Les Costello died Dec. 10, days after sustaining an injury before a game in Kincardine, Ont., with the Flying Fathers, the famous hockey-playing team comprised of priests that he co-founded in 1962. Fr. Costello, who played for the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs in the late 1940s, quit hockey to become a Catholic priest. Born in 1928 in South Porcupine, Ont. near [...]
He was one of the towering figures on the pro-life scene in Canada, and now a long-awaited book is being written about him. Joe Borowski was centrally involved in many important life-related events until his death from cancer in 1996 at the age of 62. Although much has been written and said about him - and an annual award recognizing Canada's top [...]
The legal manoeuvrings continue, but it is the fallout from James Kopp's confession to shooting Buffalo, N.Y. abortionist Barnett Slepian that predominates in the wake of the admission. Pro-life and religious leaders have continued to make known their condemnations of Kopp's apparent actions, while pro-abortion advocates have sought to seize political ground. "James Kopp is an extremist, a terrorist and a confessed [...]
The handful of cells, certain advocates of cloning like to say, is no larger than the period at the end of this sentence. So also says Cass R. Sunstein in his review of Francis Fukuyama's worrying new book, Our Posthuman Future. "If scientists will be using and cloning embryos only at a very early stage when they are just a handful of [...]
A leading bioethicist working for the National Institutes of Health in Maryland advocates aborting babies found by pre-natal testing to be blind or mentally disabled. Speaking at the University of Rhode Island Nov. 12, Dan W. Brock said, "It's uncontroversial that serious disabilities should be prevented in born persons. It's considered a misfortune to be born blind or with a serious cognitive [...]
Ethicist Dr. Christopher Levan recently told an audience of 19 people at St. Andrew's United Church in Sudbury, Ont., that the Bible doesn't condemn homosexuality. Interim contributor and Osprey Media reporter Eli Schuster noted in the Sudbury Star that Levan said that while the Bible denounces homosexual acts, it is silent on homosexuality as a sexual preference. Levan claimed that, "Personal choice [...]