On Super Tuesday II, I was watching the left-wing YouTube channel The Young Turks while primary results rolled in and I sat up when political pundit Krystal Ball joined the hosts. For some much-needed background, The Young Turks co-founder Cenk Uygur is also one of the founders of Justice Democrats, a political action committee committed to getting “progressives” like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria [...]
The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) released data tables on Jan. 23 indicating there were 85,195 reported abortions in 2018 – down from a reported 94,030 abortions in 2017. In response, Global News ran an article by Cassandra Szklarski with the headline: “Canadian clinics and hospitals performing fewer abortions, data suggests.” The same article was also published on various other websites [...]
Talk Turkey Josie Luetke I’ve previously heard that one of the disadvantages the pro-life movement has to contend with that other human rights campaigns haven’t had to is that unlike other historically oppressed groups like women and African Americans, the preborn cannot advocate for themselves. They can’t march. They can’t hold sit-in protests. There’s no civil disobedience in which they [...]
A DART & Maru/Blue Voice Canada Poll released February 1, 2020 reveals the ignorance of the Canadian populace on the abortion issue.1,515 randomly selected members of Maru/Blue’s Voice Canada Online panel were surveyed from December 5 to 8 in 2019 and the results were weighted by education, age, gender, and region to match the Canadian population, though PEI and the territories have [...]
Talk Turkey Josie Luetke I’m unsure if it’s because I’m paying more attention to depressing news as I grow old and jaded, or if our populace is genuinely becoming more indifferent, but it certainly seems like the latter (if not also the former). I suppose it’s very difficult to measure indifference with any degree of confidence, though, hence warring headlines [...]
Talk Turkey Josie Luetke I apologize that many of my columns are just a series of complaints. People – pro-lifers and myself included – are dumb. We regularly arrive at foolish moral positions and while that cannot be totally avoided, I hope the frequency of this misfortune could be at least reduced by attempting to utilize a proper system of [...]
Talk Turkey Josie Luetke I find it fitting as the clock winds down on 2019 to talk about a different clock running out. In a relatively brief span of time, I’ve been let down frequently. A former member of my high school pro-life club came out against banning abortions, asserting that she wished that more “pro-lifers” would understand that “our [...]
Talk Turkey Josie Luetke At a recent Mass I attended, the deacon indicated in his homily that we are most like Jesus when we fight against social injustices. The examples he gave? That of students participating in the climate strike, those calling for proper preparations for natural disasters, etc. I nearly keeled over the pew right then, because I’m so [...]
Talk Turkey Josie Luetke I had a hard time deciding what to write this column on because I’m not sure who bothers me more this election: “Pro-lifers” planning to vote Liberal/NDP/Green or pro-lifers insisting it’s “Conservative or bust.” I decided to write about both, in a “fun” exercise of considering which mindset is more infuriating. Let us look at Exhibit [...]
Talk Turkey Josie Luetke Like most writers, I aim to stand by everything I say, but, alas, that’s near impossible. Still, it’s bothersome to have to amend something so shortly after writing it. In the July/August edition of The Interim, I stated in my article, “How to talk about abortion,” that it’s important to acknowledge that “pregnancy is very difficult.” [...]
Josie Luetke It may just be my impression, but this past Pride Month seemed particularly vociferous. On numerous occasions, socially conservative friends and coworkers dutifully noted: “Pride cometh before the fall.” Now, I mean no offense to them and believe they were just offering a sincere warning, but it’s easy to see how this verse could be recited proudly, as [...]
Talk Turkey Josie Luetke What a whirlwind of a month, with abortion bubbling up in the public consciousness more so than ever before in my memory. The excitement began for me on the Tuesday prior to the National March for Life, at a screening of Unplannedin Ottawa. Friends who had already seen the film were raving about it, but I [...]
Talk Turkey Josie Luetke Acknowledged: This method of abortion, RU-486, marketed in Canada under the brand name Mifegymiso, has downsides. It poses dangerous health risks to women and makes abortion more difficult to protest due to the decentralization of the pill’s consumption and the age and size of the embryo it kills. Abortion proponents are thrilled with Mifegymiso because of [...]
Talk Turkey Josie Luetke I recently attended presentations by Rebecca Oas, the associate director of research for the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam), on how the United Nations misrepresents data in order to advance their anti-life and anti-family agenda. She pointed out the U.N.’s habit of confusing lower prevalence rates of contraception usage with lack of access when [...]
Talk Turkey Josie Luetke I’ve felt quite embattled this past month – by the media’s persecution of the Covington Catholic kids, by some Americans’ embrace of third-trimester abortions and flirtation with infanticide, and by Ottawa City Councilor Shawn Menard’s open discrimination against pro-life citizen transit commissioner Michael Olsen. Most of all, I’ve felt embattled by internal divisions in the pro-life [...]