Our January front page featured the copy of a questionnaire on contraceptives and condoms used in a Grade 10 class in Notre Dame Catholic High School in Welland, Ontario. We also reported that the Public Health Nurse had explained various contraceptive devices to the students and gave them a choice of three answers to a question about abortion. Furthermore, we noted that [...]
Michel Arsenault of Life Savers, Moncton, N.B., stated the defeat “was rather nice.” The bill would have allowed abortions on demand. “Now we can work towards a law that really will protect both mother and unborn child.” (The Times-Transcript) Bernard Currie, President of the Kitchener Right to Life, said there will be “mixed reactions…Some of our members have not been pleased with [...]
Delegates to the Policy Convention of the Ontario New Democratic Party held in early March in Toronto ratified a policy resolution calling on the government to create joint committees which would ensure co-operation between the separate (Roman Catholic) and public school boards. But some delegates brought forward other, much more ominous resolutions, all of which were shelved at this meeting. For example, [...]
Darryl Anaka’s five-year effort to obtain religious exemption from the B.C. Teachers Federation (BCTF) and his local teachers’ union, the Terrace Teachers’ Association (TDTA), has failed. Mr. Anaka, 41, father of three and a science teacher for 14 years at Thornhill Junior Secondary School in Terrace, had argued that the BCTF’s official ‘pro-choice’ position could not be reconciled to his religious belief [...]
In a letter published in the March issue of the Canadian Catholic Review, writer Peggy MacIsaac objects to Professor Keith Cassidy’s favourable appraisal of Michael Cuneo’s Catholics Against the Church, (Toronto, 1990) a sociological study of the pro-life movement in Toronto (reviewed in The Interim, Insight insert, February 1990). The book’s central thesis, she writes, is that pro-life activists are a divisive [...]
Nearly three quarters of all Americans believe that religious leaders have a right to express their views against abortion to elected officials. The poll was conducted by the Worthlin group. It found that 69 per cent of the 1000 people surveyed agreed with the statement: “A Church that believes it is morally wrong to have an abortion has the right to advocate [...]
Despite the serious objections of concerned teachers, abortion defender Sheila Copps opened the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA) late January ‘Poverty Hurts’ conference in Toronto. Another pro-abortionist, ex-NDP MPP, Richard Johnson was to have closed the conference, but in the end did not appear. Ms. Copps, the third place finisher in last year’s Liberal leadership race, is party leader Jean Chretien’s [...]
On November 27, 1990, the Policy Committee of the Durham Separate School Board (DSSB) revoked an earlier motion of the full board making family life and religion programs compulsory for all students. For more than a year, some parents in the region lying to the east of Toronto had fought a losing battle with the DSSB over a long-standing rule that no [...]
Father Tony Van Hee, a 55-year-old Jesuit priest from the Guelph Spirituality Centre, heaved a sigh of relief when the proposed abortion law, Bill C-43 was defeated in the Senate on January 31, 1991. Vigil Father Van Hee has kept a prayer and fasting vigil on Parliament Hill for the last year-and-a-half (since September 1989) except for a break of three months [...]
Quebec birth rate rises Despite expectations that the Quebec government’s policy of paying cash bonuses for newborn babies would not work, the number of babies born in the province increased for the second year running. The bonuses range from $500 for a first child to $6,000 for three or more children. Parents are also given special provincial income tax deductions. As a [...]
The year 1990 brought many ‘signs of hope’ to the pro-life movement said the executive secretary of the American Bishops’ Pro-Life Activities Secretariat, Father John Gouldrick. He noted the following successes in the United States: • An August poll found that most Americans believe human life begins long before birth and that the unborn child deserves protection; • Media bias against the [...]
Czechoslovakia In the second week of January, the Czechoslovak federal assembly passed a new human rights law which included a ‘right to life’ clause. Members of the assembly, especially those representing Christian-oriented parties called for this clause to be extended to cover life from the moment of conception, in other words, they wanted an end to legal abortion, in line with the [...]
Prince Edward Island is widely regarded as a pro-life province. After all, five years ago abortion was banned in this province, and two years later the Legislative Assembly declared itself pro-life. (Politically, there was little choice.) It is true the Right to Life movement still exists, but it is struggling for membership, understanding and support. On almost all other fronts, the family [...]
The recent media disclosure of the site of Henry Morgentaler’s proposed abortion ‘clinic’ has given Alberta pro-lifers impetus to lobby fiercely against its opening at 10141-150 Street in Edmonton. The site was confirmed as having been purchased by a Morgentaler holding company, Habal Gastion. “The pro-life movement as a whole will be working hard to keep Morgentaler from opening his franchise in [...]
Halifax, N.S. In late January, the struggle for life here heated up still more with the arrests of sidewalk counselors Sharon MacPherson and Karen Levy outside the recently-opened Morgentaler ‘clinic’. After walking quietly all day with their placards, MacPherson and Levy called out (once) to a very young girl being hustled into the abortuary. Abortuary staff called police, who arrested the pair [...]