The B.C. Supreme Court's Carter decision (permitting euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide) has been posted online. Have fun, it's nearly 400 pages. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition hasn't yet provided an in-depth analysis but EPC executive director Alex Schadenberg has posted/linked to a number of commentaries including Will Johnston, Rosie DiManno, Margaret Somerville, and Margaret Dore. All are worth reading.
Toronto Star columnist Chantal Hebert says that the courts might end the "collegial conspiracy of parliamentarian silence" on the issue of euthanasia and assisted-suicide by forcing the issue back into the public square. Hebert ignores the fact that all-too-often politicians outsource law-making to the courts so they don't have to address so-called controversial issues; rather than being forced to debate euthanasia, parliamentarians will hide behind the [...]
Radio broadcaster and Toronto Sun columnist Jerry Agar says that instead of banning bullets in Toronto, we need to tackle the real root cause of crime and violence: fatherlessness. Poverty, Agar points out, is connected to missing fathers (and husbands): "money and employment are symptoms of a disease; lack of fathers." Agar doesn't state what he means by "advocate against teen motherhood and [...]
The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition responds to the B.C. Supreme Court decision to legalize both euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. The EPC will have a full analysis of the 395-page decision* next week and we'll link to it when it becomes available. In short Justice Lynn Smith found not allowing doctors to kill vulnerable patients to violate those people's Charter rights. The EPC has called [...]
Details are available here. Keynote speaker at the banquet this Friday evening is broadcaster Damian Goddard. It is the pro-life event of the year in Toronto. Here's our coverage of last year's Toronto Pro-Life Forum.
Our June cover story is now online. It's about the huge National March for Life in Ottawa. Make sure you don't miss the photos. As part of our coverage we included the EFC's Don Hutchinson's moving Prayer for Life.
LifeSiteNews.com has the story. Here is the decision. Linda Gibbons is a pro-life protester who has demonstrated inside the bubble zone. The technical legal question -- the basis of the appeal -- is whether or not the Crown should use the criminal court to enforce a civil injunction. It should be noted that is was a "temporary" injunction granted in 1994 that is [...]
Assuming that Brian Storseth's private member's bill removing Section 13 from the Human Rights Code of Canada passes in the Senate. It passed the House of Commons by party-line vote last night. Section 13 severely impinged on freedom of thought and freedom of speech.
Despite its seeming simplicity, there are problems with the thinking that if Catholics don't like being made to accept (not tolerate, but accept) homosexuality as perfectly normal and protected, they shouldn't accept taxpayer funding for their schools -- expressed most recently by Heather Mallick but a common argument recently. First, Bill 13 is being made part of the Education Act which governs education in [...]
Bill 13 passed this afternoon by a vote of 65-36. Xtra! reported: The passing of Bill 13 will cap a one and a half year battle in Ontario that has pitted queer students against Catholic school administrators who have repeatedly denied student requests for GSAs. The bill is called the Safer Schools Act, which is ostensibly about bullying and, you know, making [...]
The Ontario legislature will vote on Bill 13 today. (See past Interim coverage of Bill 13, but especially this editorial.) Also today, Camilla Gunnarson responds in the Waterloo Region Recordto Martin Regg Cohn's column attacking the Catholic Church's moral teachings, which Gunnarson says is a form of bullying. There are some people who think the real goal of the Liberal government is to undermine [...]
C-304, Brian Storseth's (CPC, Westlock—St. Paul) private member's bill, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act (protecting freedom), is up for debate today. Here's our previous coverage of C-304. Here's Kathy Shaidle on C-304 at Five Feet of Fury and Sun News Network; in the latter (which is video) she explains that Section 13 is a poorly worded bad law because it is realistically impossible [...]
According to new Census numbers, Canada is getting older. We've written about this before -- you can't have broadly available abortion and contraception and still grow the population -- and we'll have more coverage in the July edition of the paper. But I wanted to bring this to your attention: check out the photo in this CTV story and you might understand why Canada [...]
Everyday for Life notes that between Bill 13 (education) and Bill 33 (everything else) Ontario will have acceptance of homosexuality trump religious freedom every time. Important if depressing read.
Arnold Kling points to the cleverly titled article "God and White Men at Yale" by Richard Conniff in The Yale Alumni Magazine. It's both a general history of eugenics and the work of Yale economist Irving Fisher. Conniff writes: By the late 1920s, 376 American colleges were offering courses in eugenics. The army of enthusiasts included, at various times, the presidents of Yale, [...]