By Andrew Lawton Saskatchewan Conservative member of parliament Cathay Wagantall’s private member’s bill to criminalize sex-selective abortion is noble, but it should be approached with caution. The bill confronts a horrific reality, but also poses moral challenges to the pro-life movement. “Above all, I’m bringing this bill forward in defense of pre-born Canadian girls and boys who are aborted simply due to [...]
By Andrew Lawton The second-wave feminists of the 1960s popularized the idea that “the personal is the political.” Well, this one is personal for me. If Bill C-7 were the law of the land a decade ago, I’d probably be dead. Bill C-7 is product of the federal Liberal government’s efforts to expand access to assisted suicide. Supporters of the bill argue [...]
By Andrew Lawton Companies used to go through painstaking lengths to avoid entering the political fray. Now, they’re encouraged to leap into it – so long as they leap left, that is. A Minnesota company is paying a steep price for going the other way. It’s a high-stakes pillow fight. If you’ve listened to talk radio or watched cable news in the [...]
BY ANDREW LAWTON Interim writer, Andrew Lawton, Laying Down the Lawton In keeping with the theme of the last four years of politics, the final weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency were needlessly eventful. A protest against the process by which Joe Biden was declared the winner of last year’s election turned into a siege on the United State Capitol, which [...]
Interim writer, Andrew Lawton, Laying Down the Lawton By Andrew Lawton Just as every business is essential if you rely on it to feed your family, church is essential if you rely on it to feed your soul. These are not radical, or even novel, ideas, yet they remain controversial in the face of lawmakers seeking to shut things – [...]
Interim writer, Andrew Lawton, Laying Down the Lawton By Andrew Lawton This column started out as a friendly Twitter exchange with my editor. I felt it important to shift it to this space for two reasons: Firstly, he said it “would make a good column,” which seems like useful advice to heed from the man who signs my paycheque; secondly, [...]
For all the post-election hand-wringing about whether social conservatism was, in the words of Peter MacKay, the “stinking albatross” that cost Andrew Scheer Canada’s premiership in 2019, the Conservative Party of Canada’s leadership race revealed, once again, that social conservatives are an invaluable and inexorable part of the country’s conservative movement. While a self-described “pro-choice candidate,” Erin O’Toole emerged as the victor; [...]
Andrew Lawton Australian wildfires. A global pandemic. Murder hornets (if you don’t know, don’t ask). Could a revolution be next among 2020’s offerings? I don’t, but that doesn’t mean things aren’t changing. After a police officer was filmed with his knee on George Floyd’s neck during an arrest in Minneapolis – an arrest that proved fatal for Floyd – a [...]
"Separation of church and state!” “Canada is a secular country!” “We can’t let religion dictate policy!” I’m sure we’ve all heard variations of these, if not the phrases verbatim, at various points in our lives. Indeed, the mere suggestion that a course of action may have a moral element seems to trigger knee-jerk reactions along these veins. There’s some truth to them, [...]
Laying Down the Lawton Even though I was raised with the teaching that “patience is a virtue,” it’s taken a pandemic to truly understand why that is. Let me confess from the outset I’m not a patient person. While I take on the occasional tedious task (such as the jigsaw puzzles my wife and I have enjoyed in lockdown) I [...]
Laying Down the Lawton with Andrew Lawton " I can’t talk right now; I’m at church,” I told my mother when she called me up on a Sunday morning in March. I wasn’t lying, though admittedly I could have been a bit clearer. I was actually sitting upright in my bed, watching a streaming video of my pastor preaching about [...]
Laying Down the Lawton That self-righteous moral superiority that has become so synonymous with Justin Trudeau’s brand appears to end at the Canadian border. On a swing through Africa in February, Trudeau won the support of Senegal in Canada’s bid for a United Nations Security Council seat. The west African nation’s vote came at the expense of the image that [...]
Laying Down the Lawton For a couple of weeks in January, Canadians were invited to share their thoughts on assisted suicide with the federal government. The “online public consultation” confirms what most people already knew – that the federal government would be revisiting the laws around assisted dying. While social conservatives no doubt leapt at the opportunity to get involved, [...]
Andrew Lawton I’ve seen more doctors in my life than I can count, yet never once have I felt the need to see a gynecologist. And why would I? I don’t think I’m oversharing to say that I lack the parts that any respectable gynecologist would be comfortable working on. So does Jessica Yaniv, the transgender individual who has catapulted [...]
Laying down the Lawton - Andrew Lawton A rookie Alberta MLA is taking a stand for healthcare practitioners’ conscience rights. The organization that’s supposed to be standing up for the rights of doctors is, bizarrely, fighting him on it. Dan Williams, a United Conservative Party MLA for Peace River, introduced a private member’s bill in early November that would amend [...]