What does Wendy Davis stand for? Wearing a bright pink pair of sneakers, the state senator from Texas recently stood for several hours during a widely reported filibuster attempt. In addition to the colour of her shoes, her fashionable outfits have also been a focus of the sympathetic feature articles about her which have abounded since she took the spotlight in the [...]
The main character in one of Molière’s plays makes a delightful discovery: without knowing it, he had, all of his life, been speaking in prose. A similar revelation occurred to the politicians, pastors, and right-thinking citizens of the 20th-century who learned that they were “pro-life.” What had hitherto been the unspoken conviction of civil society in an unbroken tradition from Hippocrates to [...]
And so, at the age of 90, Henry Morgentaler has died in his bed, an old man and full of years. Each death is a tragedy, a kind of promise broken with the mystery of life, and we at The Interim mourn Morgentaler’s passing. His life was precious; every life is precious. But, upon the grave of one who left so many [...]
Some pundits and pro-life activists are pointing to the Kermit Gosnell case as evidence of the necessity for a late-term abortion ban because he killed babies, who survived the abortion procedure, by snipping the spine; pro-life Rep. Trent Franks (R, Arizona) invoked Gosnell when he introduced his bill last month in Congress that would ban abortion after 20 weeks. But Pennsylvania [...]
When Jason Collins came out of the closet as the first homosexual athlete in a major North American team sport, he was widely praises as a “hero” and everyone was expected to join in celebrating the accomplishment of publicizing his sexuality. Collins was likened to Jackie Robinson, the Brooklyn Dodger who broke the colour barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947. What [...]
This month marks the 35th anniversary of Campaign Life, the political arm of the pro-life movement in Canada. It is, in many ways, a joyful milestone: a testament to the tireless work, on behalf of the unborn, of Campaign Life’s – and then Campaign Life Coalition’s – many supporters across the country, and to their self-sacrifice and generosity of which has [...]
On March 13, a Member of Parliament visited the University of Waterloo to make an address to a group of students. In the middle of his speech, this elected representative was interrupted by a handful of protesters, one of whom was not even a student at the university. But campus police did not intervene during this disruption, so the speech was cancelled [...]
Some nine months after our in-depth examination of the issue of gestational limits to abortion, we continue to receive correspondence on the issue. We don’t want to beat a dead horse because our position is well-known: aside from the semantic and philosophical arguments for or against gestational or other time limits on abortion, The Interim does not think this flawed incremental approach [...]
In an interview given 10 years ago, the then-Cardinal Ratzinger was asked about the possibility of his retiring from his position at the Vatican: “Yes, I had the desire to retire in 1991, 1996, 2001, because I had the idea I could write some books and return to my studies.” He then added, by way of explanation: “But, on the other hand, [...]
This cartoon was the first editorial cartoon printed in The Interim March 1983. (caption was) The others may be for the Toronto Star, but The Interim's for me. This issue marks the 30th anniversary of The Interim newspaper. Our first issue was published by Campaign Life Coalition in March 1983 to counter the pro-abortion media bias. Specifically at the time, [...]
During the most recent presidential election cycle, the American electorate was scandalized. Statements made by two Republican senatorial candidates about their opposition to abortion in cases involving rape occasioned an avalanche of outrage with condemnations, recriminations, and death threats following swiftly upon each of their remarks. In a famously divided political climate, unity suddenly, somehow appeared. This curious event allows us to [...]
Due to the slow progress in the country’s reconstruction, last month International Development Minister Julian Fantino announced that the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) would stop funding new development projects in Haiti, which is still recovering from 2010’s devastating earthquake. We are not qualified to judge whether or not $50 million in Canadian aid to Haiti was spent wisely, but we do [...]
Behind every legal fiction lies an ugly, brutal fact. The incoherent contradiction in Canadian law which maintains that life only begins at birth has allowed the silent slaughter of an untold number of nascent human lives; and, thus, for more than 40 years, unborn children in Canada have been extinguished behind the thin screen of a preposterous pretense. This contradiction has resulted [...]
In 2012, the conservative MP for Kitchener Centre, Stephen Woodworth, filed a modest motion proposing a re-examination of Canada’s seventeenth-century definition of human personhood in light of 21st century scientific knowledge. His motion proposed no new laws and merely recognized the fact that a 400-year-old notion of prenatal life might be a little out of date. Predictably, however, this sensible measure met [...]
Last month the death of 31-year-old Savita Halappanavar became international news. Halappanavar died in Ireland, the story goes, because she was not able to obtain a legal abortion. The story was reported around the world, with three Toronto papers featuring it prominently within their first three pages. On Oct. 21, Halappanavar believing she suffered a miscarriage at 17 weeks sought to have [...]