Writing in the January 2010 edition of the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada, a pair of Canadian medical experts called for new guidelines and practices to prevent sex-selection abortions. Dr. Brendan Leier, a bioethicist at the University of Alberta, and Dr. Allison T. Thiele, a resident in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Saskatchewan, note that due to the widespread [...]
The Student Society of McGill University (SSMU) has applied special restrictions on the activities of the campus pro-life club, Choose Life. After initially voting to recognize the club in the fall of 2008, the SSMU gradually increased its opposition to Choose Life after the club held events such as the Silent No More Awareness Campaign on Sept. 24, 2009 and [...]
On April 8, pro-life students at the University of Calgary set up the controversial outdoor display the Genocide Awareness Project. They have done this for a number of years and last year were charged with trespassing by police at the request of the university administration. Though they were scheduled for a court date in the fall of 2009, the charges were stayed [...]
From Feb. 17 to March 28, thousands of people across North America participated in 40 Days for Life, a campaign that raises awareness about abortion through prayer, fasting and community outreach. Each vigil is held outside of an abortion site. The campaign reflects how God used 40-day periods in biblical history to bring about change. The first 40 Days for Life campaign [...]
It was not the “pro-African-American movement,” it was the “anti-slavery movement;” the messages have not been “pro-sober driving” or “pro-clean air,” but “anti-drinking and driving” and “anti-smoking.” For too long, many of our pamphlets have been whimsical pastels and dissembling language. We are “anti-abortion” and that’s how we should identify ourselves. Though most of us who are opposed to abortion are conservative [...]
Last October, Jose Ruba of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform visited the McGill University campus to present a display entitled, “Echoes of the Holocaust,” which drew parallels between the Nazi Holocaust and an atrocity which is still perpetrated and perpetuated today: abortion. As might be expected, Ruba’s presentation was disrupted by extremists intent on violating the rights that any university ought [...]
On April 1, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had commended the Roman Catholic Church as “the conscience of the nation.” Given the record of the Brown government, informed readers might well have dismissed the story as an April Fools Day prank. Yet the report was accurate. With a general election impending on May 6, Brown [...]
I’ve been reflecting more than usual on writing and books. What got me thinking was a conversation with a fellow author I often meet at the neighbourhood library. “My book is popular in the British Isles,” he said, excited. “You mean your self-published novel that didn’t sell?” “Copies are flying off the shelves.” “Congratulations,” I said. “You must be pleased [...]
“Frank, sit down. What can I do for you?” “Well Millstone, old friend, you are acknowledged as the greatest oracle in the Western world. I come to you for some free advice. What would you do to solve the difficulties facing Pope Benedict today?” “Frank, I’ve never accepted the old bromide that the buck stops here and by that, I mean at [...]
Early in the previous century, G.K. Chesterton observed that it is the mark of the modern that “the normative is everywhere and always being subordinated to the non-normative.” In our own age of proliferating “rights,” it is a further mark of the modern that the universal is everywhere and always subordinated to the particular. Until relatively recently, the natural rights upon which [...]
The sun is shining, or it’s raining or snowing, so it must be time for yet another attack on the Roman Catholic church. This time involving lies about the Pope, his brother and, before long, his auntie Freda and his pet cat Hans. Logical thinking and balanced thought were eliminated from this subject long ago. It’s church-bashing time and why [...]
Notably, social issues absent from negotiations between two left-of-center parties How We Almost Gave the Tories the Boot (The Inside Story Behind the Coalition) by Brian Topp (Lorimer, $24.95, 192 pp.) The coalition that almost usurped power from the Conservatives in the fall of 2008 seems like a distant memory in the spring of 2010, but How We Almost Gave the Tories [...]
Life is not like a baseball game with clear, clean lines The brief interim between the end of batting practice and the commencement of the game invites a moment of reflection when the spectator can look at the field of play while it is devoid of players. In this meditative moment, undistracted by the game, one can begin to appreciate the significance [...]
On April 14, Rod Bruinooge (C - Winnipeg South) tabled Bill C-510, a private member’s bill to amend the Criminal Code of Canada to outlaw coercing women into having an abortion. Bruinooge, the chair of the Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus, in introducing An Act to Prevent the Coercion of Women to Abortion to the House of Commons, said, “This bill will [...]
On April 21, Bill C-384 was overwhelmingly defeated when the House of Commons voted 228-59 against Francine Lalonde’s (BQ, La Pointe-de-l’Île) private member’s bill to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide. After the vote, two Liberal MPs (Ujjal Dosanjh and Ken Dryden) sought but were denied permission to change their vote from in favour of C-384 to opposing it because they claimed they [...]