The August issue of The Interim went to press yesterday, a labour intensive process which explains the lack of new blog posts recently. This was a content-laden issue, with a focus on the Rasouli decision (which guarantees that doctors cannot unilaterally pull the plug on patients) and gendercide (a topic sparked by Mara Hvistendahl's recent book, Unnatural Selection, which is also reviewed). Michael [...]
Make sure you check out the ad for the Nurses for Life conference in British Columbia this weekend. It has a wonderful roster of speakers including Dr. Margaret Cottle, Palliative Care Physician, UBC; Sean Murphy, Administrator of the Protection of Conscience Project; Christina Lamb, RN, Bio-Ethicist; Stephanie Gray, Co-founder and Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform; Anita Sonntag, Silent No More Awareness Campaign [...]
Oz Clark, a frequent contributor to this blog, wrote a short column in the July issue about how the seeming contradictory evidence of the public's view on abortion (per polling data) shows the way forward for pro-lifers: educate the open-minded and play on the mixed feelings many have (don't like abortion but don't want to ban it, either). Clark concludes: The challenge [...]
Our July cover story examining the costs associated with abortion -- from dysfunctional relationships to health problems -- is now online. Some pro-lifers are uneasy about removing the focus of abortion from the unborn child, but aside from strategic issues that may promote the cause of life, society has a right to know -- and obligation to understand -- the myriad ways [...]
The news about Hudak’s signing a petition more than a decade ago saying he is pro-life is apparently big news today, and the media is in a full fledged frenzy, with reports from the Toronto Sun, National Post, Ottawa Citizen, Toronto Star, and CTV. We agree with the Citizen that Hudak's position is gutless, but there is plenty of outrage to go around. The origin [...]
Everything that Laura Ingraham says about teens and young people with no apparent sense of shame or boundaries is worrying and disturbing, but I wonder if in some ways we exaggeratehow much things change. For example, Ingraham says, "There was a time when people got dressed up and had conversations to see if they were compatible — now they examine tan lines." I [...]
Via Slate's Rachael Larimore: China and India has aborted more girls (160 million) than America has women. Larimore's article does the same dance that Mara Hvistendahl does in her Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men: note that gender imbalances are caused by abortion without blaming abortion. Of course, there are other issues at play [...]
From the June issue, our obituary of confessed serial killer Jack Kevorkian. It is important to note that he earned the moniker Dr. Death long before he started killing people: The Detroit News and Washington Post compared him to civil rights heroes, fighting for what the News euphemistically referred to as “death rights.” Broadcaster Barbara Walters complained about the moniker Dr. Death, but [...]
Maclean's does, you know, actual journalism and debunks the million attendance figure for Toronto's annual Pride Parade: One million, eh? Really? That’s about one-fifth of the population of the Greater Toronto Area crammed into a 2-km parade route through downtown city streets. The letter writer, Steven Murray of Victoria, BC, whose math is undoubtedly better than mine, points out that this is [...]
Expect to hear a lot of the term gendercide in the next while, in part because of Mara Hvistendahl's new book, Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, And The Consequences Of A World Full Of Men. The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada has released a discussion paper on the topic. The subject is finally getting some much-needed and overdue attention. As always, Mark Steyn sums up [...]
One of two main stories from the July issue focuses on the disappearance of the pro-life Liberal and how it affects both the Liberal Party and the pro-life movement.
Samara is having a contest for the best political book in Canada over the past 25 years and Ezra Levant's Shakedown: How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights is nominated. Levant's book and personal ordeal dealing with the human rights commission industry in Canada has done more than anything or anyone to highlight the threat to personal liberty inherent [...]
Radio personality and Toronto Sun columnist Jerry Agar writes about the issue most commentators have danced around: the Gay Pride Parade features elements that the mayor of the city of Toronto (or any mayor) might not want to be involved with: Are the streets of the city an appropriate place for public nudity and for throwing condoms to kids in the crowd? Portions of [...]
In his Sun column Warren Kinsella claims that up to 15% of the population is homosexual. Kathy Shaidle critiques the column. She does a great job explaining why Kinsella is wrong, but we should understand where Kinsella is coming from. It is possible, I suppose, that Warren Kinsella's Toronto is 15% gay -- downtown TO and Liberal circles are disproportionately populated by homosexuals and gay-friendly straights [...]
Rory Leishman in the June issue of The Interim on Ontario's schools, the power of teachers' unions, and a lesson from the United Kingdom: The teachers’ unions prefer Liberals and New Democrats who promise to augment the huge increases in spending lavished on the province’s under-performing public and Catholic school systems over the past eight years of Liberal rule. Bottom line: the [...]