Stephen T. Asma writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education about how environmentalism has many religious elements: Instead of religious sins plaguing our conscience, we now have the transgressions of leaving the water running, leaving the lights on, failing to recycle, and using plastic grocery bags instead of paper. In addition, the righteous pleasures of being more orthodox than your neighbor (in [...]
Chuck Donovan at The Foundry, the blog of the Heritage Foundation, takes note of the threat of government-funding of abortion not only through the direct or indirect subsidies to private health insurance plans but through community health centers. Donovan says: According to a new analysis just released by National Right to Life Committee legislative director Doug Johnson, Sec. 10503 of the Reid “Manager’s [...]
The Times of London reported earlier this week that babies 'concieved' through in-vitro fertilization are at greater risk for diabetes and obesity. The paper reports: The changes are not in the genes themselves but in the mechanism that switches them on and off, the study of which is known as epigenetics. “These epigenetic differences have the potential to affect embyronic development and foetal [...]
LifeSiteNews.com has a story in which they note which charities pro-lifers should eschew when looking for ways to help Haitians in these tragic times for them. A couple notable charities that deserve support: Cross International Haiti Mission Unfortunately, we must remind readers that the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace and the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (U.S.) both have what [...]
Several stories from the January 2010 issue are now online. Interim editors list the Top 10 stories of 2009 Editor Paul Tuns examines Anti-human life environmentalism and there is a related editorial "A deadly climate." Canadian pro-life politicians past and present look ahead at 2010. We have our annual general meeting today. Blogging will resume Thursday.
From The Interim's January editorial: [A]ll of the causes of climate change are euphemisms for man. The problem is not the carbon footprint, but the person who leaves it; the problem is not carbon consumption, but the carbon consumer; the problem is not even pollution, but the hidden polluter. The real pollution is always the same thing, and it is always a person. In [...]
The Wall Street Journal had an excellent article on Bart Stupak, the Democratic Congressman who is trying to address the egregious aspects of Obamacare by ensuring that there will be no direct or indirect taxpayer funding of abortion. The article is worth reading in its entirety, but the first and last paragraph explains everything you need to know about the political calculus [...]
National Journal has a video worth taking a look at. The point of the three-minute news segment is that the older generation of pro-abortion leaders are out of touch with today's young women. As Overbrook Research discovered in 2007, young people are more likely to be pro-life than pro-abortion. I would suggest that this is more of a backlash against the rhetorical excesses of abortion advocates [...]
Edwin Meese has a column in the Wall Street Journal on the battle in California to overturn Prop 8 which banned same-sex marriage in the Golden State. Instead of examining the legal arguments of the case, Judge Vaughn Walker will examine the religious and moral beliefs of the advocates of traditional marriage and put those views on trial. Worse, he will be [...]
Another thought the Globe and Mail (finally) taking notice of the abortion-breast cancer link which I noted this morning. The media covering up the ABC link is nothing new, but it is enlightening because it tells us something important about the advocates of so-called "choice". I wrote about it in an editor's desk column in December 2007: The ABC link is one [...]
In November, I noted that pro-abortion Liberals and some in the media attacked Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott for his pro-life statements that abortion might not be to the benefit of women. Vellacott has long sought to educate the public and his parliamentary colleagues of the link between abortion and breast cancer. Because so many pro-abortion journalists are heavily invested in the narrative that abortion is a [...]
Over at The American Spectator, G. Tracy Mehan points to Patrick Fagan's call to arms defending monogamy (traditional marriage and family life). Fagan writes in the current Touchstone: The culture of the traditional family is now in intense competition with a very different culture. The defining difference between the two is the sexual ideal each embraces. The traditional family of Western civilization is based [...]
Writing at National Review Online, Wesley Smith has a list of the top ten bioethical stories of the past decade and it isn't all bad news. Euthanasia was legalized in Washington state, but generally Americans are more pro-life. There is the growth of biological colonialism (foreign organ tissue market for transplants) but also adult stem cell therapy breakthroughs. Smith's top bioethical story of the [...]
Harley Price has an excellent post on human rights, human rights commissions, and hate speech. It defies excerption, but there are a few takeaway points that extremely important. We live in an age when the normal is viewed as abhorrent as the "universal is everywhere and always subordinated to the particular." That leads to certain opinions being marginalized as hateful or offensive and necessary to [...]
Yesterday, it became clear that two important Democratic senators are not seeking re-election this year. Senator Byron Dorgan (ND) formally announced that he was not seeking re-election and rumours swirled that Senator Christopher Dodd (Conn) would make a similar announcement today. Both were facing serious challenges but the Dorgan announcement was still a surprise. According the National Right to Life Committee, on [...]