Canada
The provincial government of Newfoundland and Labrador has announced that “transition-related surgery assessments are now available …” for those wishing to transgender. The government has issued a list of approved provincial health-care professionals to assess “anyone requiring insured transition-related surgery …” Previously, clients had to travel to Toronto to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health for assessment. However, although most clients requesting gender-transition surgery will still have to travel outside Newfoundland for the surgery itself, the insured portions of the surgery and travel costs will be covered by the province’s Medical Care Plan. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health Standards of Care will be followed (CBC News, Nov. 4). The Health Minister of Prince Edward Island announced on 20 November that “We have a transgender steering committee … looking at all transgender health-care issues … It’s this government’s intention to provide these services here on our own soil.” The services include hormone therapy and counselling services currently available at a clinic in Fredericton, New Brunswick, which also provides abortion services.
The government of Alberta has introduced Bill 205: The Human Tissue and Organ Donation (Presumed Consent) Amendment Act which passed first reading in the legislature on Nov. 20. The bill specifies that Albertans will be presumed to have given consent that their organs and tissue be donated upon their death. So if a person does not want to donate his/her organs or tissue, that must be specified before death, or the ‘presumed consent’ will kick in and health professionals may take appropriate steps to remove same. Nova Scotia passed similar legislation in April, which is expected to come into effect in 2020.
The board of directors of the Windsor Regional Hospital did not pursue a 150-meter no-protest zone around their facility. The Ontario Safe Access to Abortion Services Actprohibits any kind of pro-life demonstration within 50 meters of any place to commits abortions. Pro-life witnesses often demonstrate outside the 50-meter bubble zone near the WRH along Tecumseh Road, but the hospital board did not find the protests impeded their work or harmed women. The Windsor Starreported that Feminists for Action Windsor had requested the hospital seek a larger bubble zone “to ensure that their patients receive compassion before they enter the hospital doors or after they leave.” The board said they have “closely monitored” both pro-life and pro-abortion advocacy, and that it has not compromised abortion access. Feminists for Action Windsor called the decision “inaction” despite the fact the hospital board said it was “thoroughly discussed.” Feminists for Action Windsor said they will “continue to fight for a ‘bubble zone’ so women … will not have to walk by protestors or judgement.”
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced a 10-year plan (how Soviet) to grow the province’s economy and population. He said he wants Saskatchewan to grow by 226,000 people and the create 100,000 more jobs than expected by 2030. The province currently has 1.174 million people. Moe said a growing economy will provide a better quality of life and encourage people to move to the province. Politicians should be judged on their actions not their words. Earlier this year, the Saskatchewan government made it easier to access the abortion drug Mifepristone. The 30 goals for 2030 announced by Moe did not include any reduction to abortion or birth control, obvious measures that would help the population grow. There have been at least 1,800 surgical abortions every year in Saskatchewan since 1994.
United States
Earlier in 2019, the Trump administration issued new rules to protect doctors, nurses and other health professionals who have moral objections to assisting in certain procedures like abortion, contraception, or assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing. President Donald Trump has made it clear that religious freedom is “at the heart of protecting medical professionals” who don’t want to be in the business of killing unborn babies. In the U.S., freedom of religion is a constitutionally protected right grounded in the religion clause of the First Amendment. Regulations that had been in place nationally for some years had confusing language which didn’t adequately cover these medical professionals who were open to discrimination and unable to protect their conscience rights. In addition, new people coming into the healthcare community were not told that they did have conscience rights to opt out of providing abortion services. The new rules were worded such that there was no ambiguity or confusion on what the healthcare workers’ rights were. However, 20 states refused to accept the new regulations and brought a lawsuit against the federal government. New York federal judge Paul Engelmayer – an Obama appointee – found the “conscience rule” unconstitutional because “it uses withholding of federal funds as an enforcement mechanism” and so ruled that the Department of Health and Human Services “acted arbitrarily and capriciously” in promulgating it. He struck down the legislation “in its entirety.”
The civil case of Planned Parenthood versusCenter for Medical Progressconcluded this in San Francisco. David Dadeilen and four co-defendants lost the case brought by Planned Parenthood and must pay $870,000 in punitive damages and $1.3 million in compensatory damages to the abortion giant. The case was about the Center for Medical Progressand its lead David Dadeilen exposing the dirty little secret that Planned Parenthood is involved in organ harvesting on live babies, the heinous practice of buying and selling body parts , for profit, of aborted babies, often obtaining the body parts while the unborn child is alive. The judge in the case – William Orrick, of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, who has ties to Planned Parenthood – disallowed a number of evidence points put forward by the defense counsel, and made incorrect instructions to the jury, including telling the jury that the defendants were guilty of trespass and that the first amendment did not apply. This means that the judge did not accept that Daleiden and his colleagues are journalists and therefore protected by the first amendment. In fact, the Center for Medical Progressuses undercover video coverage, which is considered a standard investigative journalism technique, to expose corrupt practices in numerous areas of investigation in America. The defendants were represented by the Thomas More Society which had spent four years preparing for the case. Peter Breen, lead counsel for the defense, reported that the expose of Planned Parenthood “were so abhorrent that the U.S. Congress issued criminal referrals for Planned Parenthood and numerous states and elected officials have moved to strip it of funding.” Dadeilen called the verdict “a dangerous attack” on first amendment rights, which is expected to be appealed.
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf vetoed a bill Nov. 21 that would have prohibited abortions for preborn children diagnosed with Down syndrome. Wolf said, “this legislation is a restriction on women and medical professionals and interferes with women’s health care.” He continued: “Physicians and their patients must be able to make choices about medical procedures based on best practices and standards of care.” Eugenics is not a best practice or standard of care. Indeed, it is the polar opposite.
Aid Access is a U.S. organization which illegally provides the distribution of the chemical abortion pill using overseas prescribing-and-shipping procedures to women who then perform a do-it-yourself chemical abortion. Aid Access claims that it is meeting a growing demand for abortion in states with strong pro-life legislation, like South Dakota, which recently reported its lowest annual abortion total since 1973. In addition to using the Aid Access chemical pill, women in states like South Dakota are also going out-of-state for their abortions. Therefore, if the do-it-yourself method cannot be tracked, the total number of women self-inducing is unknown. What is known is that in 2014, 12 per cent of abortion facilities treated women who had attempted a do-it-yourself abortion and suffered complications. Three years later, that figure had risen to 18 per cent. So clearly something is going on to increase the number of women seeking help with abortion complications. What is known is that as many as 20 per cent of chemical abortions can lead to a severe medical problem. Earlier this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ordered Aid Access to stop its illegal distribution of the chemical abortion pill. Rather than cease, the organization was emboldened to respond with a lawsuit against the FDA. The Charlotte Lozier Institute wonders if Aid Access is “expanding demand for abortion (in states like South Dakota) … by mailing pills to women who wouldn’t have had an abortion otherwise, as some of its customers acknowledge?” This is a tactic used by Planned Parenthood to increase demand for abortions in the U.S. “As things stand now, U.S. women are being subjected to a mass experiment, engineered by a foreign distributor, acting in violation of U.S. laws promulgated by the Obama FDA. Women deserve better, no matter where they live.”
Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear said in his podcast that he uses the pronouns preferred by self-identified transgender individuals rather than pronouns that match the biology of individuals. He said that Christians should disagree “charitably,” explaining: “There is a spectrum of generosity of spirit versus telling truth. I tend toward generosity of spirit.” This isn’t your grandparents’ South Baptists.
International
In April 2019, for the first time ever, the United States forced Germany, the presiding UN Security Council president for that month, to remove abortion-related terms from a United Nations Security Council resolution on sexual violence in conflict. The resolution was then adopted with no mention of abortion or ‘sexual and reproductive health. According to Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam), Germany has asserted that it and the UN will continue to “promote abortion for victims of rape in war zones.” Asked about future abortion-related conflicts with the U.S., the German ambassador at the U.N. shot back defiantly: “Absolutely we (the U.N. and Germany in particular) will push back …because there is one government (the Trump administration) that does not want anything on this topic (abortion), do you stop all your activities?” In November of this year, the U.S. was able, for the second time, to keep abortion-related language out of a UN Security Council resolution on women in crisis and conflict. The U.S. remains determined to eliminate “sexual and reproductive health” (i.e. abortion) language from UN documents. European members of the UN – as well as the Canadian delegation – and their donor community, on the other hand, insist that abortion is “humanitarian aid” and that funding to developing countries must include services for abortion, contraception and sterilization.
