Rory Leishman In a landmark decision on April 21, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands held that a Dutch physician was not guilty of murder in the planned and deliberate killing of a demented patient in a nursing home despite not having even attempted to obtain the consent of the patient to be euthanized. Regardless, the Court held that the [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman Salem, Mass., will remain forever notorious as the place where, in 1692, more than 200 people were accused of witchcraft, 30 were found guilty and 19 (14 women and five men) were executed by hanging before Massachusetts Governor William Phips terminated this travesty of justice. Today, we look back on the Salem witch trials with amazement [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman In March, The Atlantic published an informative essay by David Brooks on the current state of marriage and the family in the United States that is well worth reading, notwithstanding that he comes to the wrongheaded conclusion that creation of the nuclear family, defined as a married couple and their biological children, was a mistake and needs to [...]
Rory Leishman National Affairs For a striking illustration of the moral and spiritual degradation that afflicts so many ostensibly Christian universities in North America, consider the contrasting reactions to the screening of the excellent pro-life movie Unplannedat Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, and King’s University College at Western University in London, Ontario. Given that both Benedictine College and King’s [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman Prior to enactment of the Medical Assistance in Dying (Bill C-14) in 2016, pro-lifers warned that this pernicious legislation would mark but the first, fatal step down an exceedingly slippery slope toward ever broader legal scope for physicians to intentionally kill their vulnerable patients. Proponents of euthanasia scoffed. In a report released in 2011, the self-styled [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman In Ottawa couple deserves immense credit for their resolute opposition to the transgender propaganda that was persistently inflicted on their six-year-old daughter in a Grade 1 class at an Ottawa public school. According to an application before the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, the teacher (JB) of the daughter in this case (NB) allegedly initiated a series of [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman Almost all members of Parliament representing the Liberal Party, the Bloc Quebecois, the New Democratic Party and the Green Party of Canada fancy themselves as enlightened and progressive legislators who are leading Canadians to a better and brighter future. But is that true? Most definitely not. Well-intentioned as these progressive politicians might be, the great majority [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman In a televised debate on October 15th among Democrat candidates for President of the United States in next year’s election, former vice-president Joe Biden maintained: ”Reproductive rights are a constitutional right.” Furthermore, he promised to nominate people for the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) who can be relied upon to “support the right of [...]
Rory Leishman Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt, is a timely new book by Arthur C. Brooks that presents a compelling argument about how all people – left and right, pro-life and “pro-choice” – can best communicate their ideas to friends and fellow citizens about subjects on which they fundamentally disagree. As [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman On April 20, The Spectator, one of the oldest and most influential weekly, news magazines in Britain, published an intriguing debate on the legalization of euthanasia by two avowed atheists, Sam Leith and Douglas Murray, respectively literary and associate editor for the magazine. In recent years, bills to legalize euthanasia have been repeatedly rejected by the [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman While the Trudeau Liberal government deserves credit for a substantial decline in child poverty over the past few years, there is still much that both the federal and the provincial governments should do to safeguard the lives and enhance the well-being of the poorest and most vulnerable of our fellow Canadians –starting, of course, with babies [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman In recent years, theologically orthodox Christians have come under sustained attack throughout Europe and North America. The Netherlands, once renowned for its tolerance, is no exception. Some 250 Dutch Calvinists are now undergoing a hate-crime investigation for publicly reaffirming the traditional teaching of the Christian Church on the sinfulness of sexual intercourse outside the bond of marriage [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman In a remarkable report released in December, the Expert Panel on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) which was convened by the Canadian Council of Academies at the request of the Trudeau government concluded that there is no consensus among academic authorities on the wisdom of amending Canada’s euthanasia law to include MAiD for mature minors, advance directives [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman Despite the intense controversy over the birth last November of the world’s first gene-altered designer babies in China, numerous leading biologists around the world are proceeding with similar, potentially catastrophic experiments. The crisis has been brought on by the invention of CRISPR Cas9, a revolutionary new technology for editing genes that was hailed four years ago by [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman That is the best, most reliable and time-tested means of determining the difference between good and evil? According to the Book of Proverbs, King Solomon had the right answer: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight [...]