The Globe and Mail reported that the Conservative government was under fire yesterday for refusing to fund Toronto's Gay Pride Parade. “Why does ideology trump economics in this Conservative government?” Brampton Liberal MP Navdeep Bains asked. He was criticizing the decision to cut funding to Toronto’s gay pride parade; last year Ottawa gave the event $400,000 in funding under its marquee tourism program. [...]
Our lead May editorial on the student union at McGill placing onerous restrictions on the pro-life club there. The editorial concludes: Thus, by abusing their little brief authority, the SSMU is besmirching McGill’s good name and its prized ideals. The final indignity in this sordid affair, however, is the administration’s refusal to criticize the SSMU’s disgraceful actions. Declining to comment on the [...]
Extensive coverage of Roxanne's Law from the May issue is now available online. Notable point beyond the confines of this bill is Rod Bruinooge's comment that the backlash against the bill and the PMO's distancing itself from it confirmed the “ineligibility of abortion as a matter to be discussed in Canada.”
Eight pro-life students at the University of Calgary have been found guilty of a major violation under the non-academic misconduct policy. It isn't quite clear what the punishment will be, but it could be a reprimand, it could be an expulsion (and a range of punishments between). “We are going to challenge this verdict,” stated Alanna Campbell, president of Campus Pro Life said [...]
The London Free Press notes that back in 1982, then Liberal MP Garnet Bloomfield was the lone Grit to vote against repatriating the constitution. Bloomfield voted against the Constitution Act of 1982 because it did not protect the right to life. Bloomfield is a tremendously principled politician. He voted against his prime minister and his party on an issue of utmost importance. The [...]
Rory Leishman is The Interim's national affairs columnist, but he also pens a regular column for the London Free Press. This week he tackles sex ed, not only in elementary and high school but at the university. It is pretty shocking what the University of Western Ontario allows to go in its classrooms. Leishman notes: Sex education on the post-secondary level in Canada is [...]
The Canadian Catholic bishops have spoke out firmly against abortion in a message just days before the 41st anniversary of Canada's day of infamy, the passing of the Omnibus Bill in 1969, in which Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Justice Minister John Turner -- both 'Catholics' -- effectively legalized abortion on demand. Today, the Catholic bishops say civilization itself is under assault from [...]
Liberal MP Hedy Fry says she's wants to debate abortion. Stephanie Gray, of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, says bring it on. Of course, abortion advocates seldom actually debate pro-lifers. They typically don't want to give the pro-life side any credence. That, and they know that their arguments don't stand up to serious scrutiny.
Mark Mercer is a professor in the philosophy department at Saint Mary's University and yesterday he wrote an op-ed for the Ottawa Citizen that will make your head spin. The column is beyond excerption, but briefly his argument is this: the unborn child is a human being but it isn't a person because it is not aware of itself in the world and therefore doesn't [...]
Our lead editorial in the May issue is on why pro-lifers should participate in the national and provincial marches for life: National March for Life represents the beginning of a new, civilized chapter in Canadian history and the end of a dark age of barbarism. That this coming community is imperiled before its birth is not surprising; but, unlike so many innocent [...]
Chris Selley writes in the National Post about what he perceives as a phony abortion war in Canadian politics, and as far as I can tell he means in both the context of maternal health and abortion in general. His argument comes down to using a single two-year-old poll to suggest that because only 4% of respondents oppose abortion in all circumstances [...]
Former Bush speechwriter and current Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson tackles the issue of Hillary Clinton's criticism of Ottawa's G8 maternal health initiative which excludes abortion. I'm going to gloss over the fact that Gerson too easily accepts the notion that contraception (condoms) is a legitimate component of the development agenda and focus narrowly on the issue of abortion. He says that Clinton's [...]
For the past four days there have been "news" reports that Stephen Harper's government is not going to fund abortion as part of its proposed G8 maternal health initiative although it has indicated other countries can pony up for abortion if they want. At some point this really isn't news anymore but regurgitation masquerading as journalism. Yesterday, the Globe and Mail reported [...]
Marisa Meltzer writes about doulas who assist in abortions: Abortion doula services were unheard of until three years ago, when pro-choice activists within the birth community decided that they should serve the full spectrum of pregnancy choices, whether it's birth, adoption, or abortion. Mary Mahoney and Lauren Mitchell created New York City's Doula Project, a volunteer-based service that provides free doula services to [...]
Here are my thoughts (first posted at Sobering Thoughts) on the announcement that the Canadian government will not fund abortion in its maternal health program: The Globe and Mail reports: Canada is refusing to fund abortion services as part of a G8 initiative to improve the health of mothers in poor countries. Just as G8 officials arrived in Halifax for talks on [...]