Nat Hentoff, a pro-life left-libertarian, has an excellent letter-to-the-editor in the Washington Posttoday on why hate crime laws are wrong. Earlier this week, the paper editorialized in favour of Barack Obama signing a hate crime bill into law saying it expanding civil rights. As Hentoff notes, it actually creates two classes of victims and is obviously unconstitutional by putting convicted criminals in [...]
Harry Stein writes about the popular television series Mad Men in City Journal. Stein notes how things have changed since the 1950s setting of the series: Start with family life. Back then, under 8 percent of American children were born out of wedlock annually. Today, that figure is close to 40 percent overall and fully 70 percent in the black community—which, for all [...]
As Ezra Levant notes the Canadian Jewish News ran an article about him and his crusade against the whole human rights commission industry. As Levant notes, "I just don't think that would have happened two years ago." I don't think it would have happened two years ago, either, and it wouldn't have happened today were it not for Levant's selfless and costly battle against [...]
The Economist cover feature this week is on demography, growth and the environment with a focus on falling fertility: "Falling Fertility," "The rich are different," and "Go forth and multiply a lot less." Interim editor Paul Tuns will be commenting on these stories later today. The Daily Mail reports that neither men nor women will be necessary for reproduction as scientists at Stanford create eggs and sperm [...]
Writing in The Hill, Rep. Bart Stupak (D, Mich.) says he is not opposed to health care reform even though he is vigorously fighting to ensure that there will be no public funding of abortion. But this leaves the door open to Stupak and perhaps his pro-life colleagues in the Democratic Party supporting the eventual reform bill even if it does permit [...]
The Royal Society of Canada has appointed a new international commission to examine "End-of-life decision making" in Canada. As Wesley Smith notes, at least four of the six members are actively supportive of euthanasia and/or doctor-assisted suicide: Udo Schuklenk, a pro-euthanasia philosophy professor from Queen's University and Ontario Research Chair in Bioethics; Johannes van Delden, a euthanasia researcher from the Medical Council of the Royal [...]
This is essentially a how-to search and destroy manual in The Guardian, and it bothers me greatly: It's recommended that all women in England and Wales are offered a combination of tests to screen for Down's syndrome. The tests should be offered early in pregnancy, between week 11 and the end of week 13, although a slightly different set of tests can be [...]
The Guardian reports "'Death tourism' leads Swiss to consider ban on assisted suicide." The Parents Television Council has issued a report that finds that violence against women on TV has increased 120 percent between 2004 and 2009. A study published in the Journal of Happiness Studies suggests children lead to marital bliss. ScienceDaily.com has the story. The New York Times reports that [...]
CNSNews.com reported on Tuesday that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer reached out with an unsatisfactory compromise to pro-life Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) over the latter's insistence that the House vote on his amendment to explicitly prohibit any federal money from paying for abortions, directly or indirectly. LifeSiteNews.com has a story and videothat raises doubts about whether Stupak will actually vote against health care reform that [...]
LifeSiteNews.com reports: The swine flu vaccine approved for use in Canada by the country's federal drug regulator does not use aborted fetal cell lines in its manufacture. The vaccine is produced by GlaxoSmithKline under the trade name Arepanrix, and is made with chick embryos. Health Canada's Arepanrix product information leaflet says the "H1N1 antigen is prepared from virus grown in the allantoic [...]
The Aurora Daily Herald reports that the local Planned Parenthood is expanding its parking lot by 11 spaces. The Aurora PP wanted 27 parking spots but the city voted to allow only 11. I don't care if it is the city's "most controversial parking lot" this barely qualifies as news.
Children of God for Life, which tracks the use of fetal tissue in pharmaceutical and other products, announced yesterday that Neocutis is using aborted fetal cell lines in some of their anti-aging skin creams. GGL wants people to contact the company and their investors -- both of which are good things -- but merely publicizing it should hurt sales because the whole idea of a vanity [...]
In a story about attempts in California to overturn Prop 8, the New York Times describes the union of a man and woman as an "opposite-sex marriage." WorldNetDaily has more.
The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada has a short video on what euthanasia and physician assisted suicide is, why it is unnecessary and the dangers of legalizing them. John Couretas of The Observer, the blog of the American Orthodox Institute, notes that Metropolitan Bartholomeis of Chalcedon has said some fairly “unorthodox” things regarding the sanctity of life. In 1990, the Greek Orthodox patriarch said: "We are [...]
The Daily Telegraph reports: The figures showed that diagnoses of Down's syndrome increased from 1,075 in 1989/90 to 1,843 in 2007/8. Yet the numbers of babies born with the condition fell by one per cent from 752 to 743. That's because an average of three unborn children diagnosed as Down's Syndrome are killed by abortion every day in England and Wales, or [...]