Way to go, Peterborough!
Peterborough – Civic Hospital’s Board of Governors is having a hard time getting pro-lifers off their backs. Since the news that Toronto abortionist Nikki Colodny was being “united” to Peterborough to help kill preborn Peterborough babies, the pro-lie contingent has been galvanized into action. Very successful action!
Following peaceful and prayerful visits to the houses of the three local abortionists, two have decided they do not want to perform abortions. The remaining one, Jack Sheppard, is rumored to be contemplating “retirement.” Since no other doctors find killing preborn babies palatable, Civic Hospital has a problem providing its “necessary medical services.” Hence the invitation to abortionist Colodny – all expenses paid!
How did pro-lifers react? A series of “Witnesses for Life” were initiated. The first, in March this year, brought a crowd of 75 souls to the front doors of the hospital. The second, in April, in one of the worst late-winter storms, brought over 100; whilst a third, May 23, attracted 175 witnesses, including many youth (God bless them).
Now the good news! At a meeting of the Combined Services Committee, representing all doctors who provide services to the two Peterborough Hospitals (Civic and St. Joseph’s), a motion was proposed “that Civic Hospital phase out of the provision of abortion services.” The emotion passed by a majority vote.
Pro-life leaders in Peterborough are cautiously optimistic that the Board of Governors will at least recognize the significance of this motion. However, it is doubtful that they will act immediately. So additional pressure will be brought to bear by a series of further witnesses. , hopefully, and with God’s Grace, attended by ever-larger members. All local pastors were asked to promote the witness on June 20 and urge their flock to attend. In the meantime, all pro-lifers were contacted and asked to (a) attend the vigil and (b) write a letter of concern/protest to the Board of Governors and the Executive Director of Civic Hospital.
Readers of The Interim who have any connection with the Kawarthas are invited to drop a line to both parties. The address is Peterborough Civic Hospital, 1 Hospital Drive, Peterborough, Ontario K9J 7C6.
More ruckus about Court Challenges Program
Ottawa – The House of Commons standing committee on human rights has suggested that a one-time grant of $10-million be given to an independent foundation to help minorities challenge the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
In February 1992 the government cancelled the Court Challenges program, which financed some 250 cases over 14 years, at the cost of millions to the taxpayer. The chief beneficiaries of this program were feminist and homosexual groups seeking legal support for their own revolutionary standards of behavior.
After more than seven years in power and enraging its own Conservative critcs, the P.C. government decided, for electoral reason, that it had better discontinue this program. Federal elections are scheduled for 1993.
The more open supporters of feminist causes in the NDP and Liberal opposition parties, however, have harshly criticized the February decision and are now seeking ways to get around it.
LEAF vs. REAL
In a recent edition of Financial Post, Sheila McIntyre, of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF), and Gwen Landolt, of REAL Woman, squared off in argument over Bill C-49, the sexual assault bill. McIntyre produced the questionable statistic that one in four women experiences sexual assault, and described how a coalition of women’s organizations joined together to propose new legislation – the first history, she said, to reflect the experience and expertise of women.
Importantly, the bill says that a complainant’s sexual history is rarely relevant – surely a statement which is open to question.
For Ms. McIntyre, the bill is woman-respecting. For Mrs. Landolt, it is man-hating; in fact she says that it puts men in an unfair prejudicial position, reverses the fundamental principle of criminal law that an accused is innocent until proven guilty and deserves to be called the “Despise Men Amendment.”
Sunday shopping not a bonanza
Toronto – Judging by Western Canadian experience said a Financial Post story dated June 8, Ontario merchants are not going to find Sunday shopping a bonanza for them. “I have no use for Sunday shopping whatsoever,” the operator of six camera stores in Edmonton was quoted as saying. “The costs are much higher than the benefits.”
A Vancouver retailer of men’s wear said that he opens only on two Sundays a year: “I don’t like it. Nobody wants to work on Sundays…you are obliged to go in yourself.”
Even the impact on crossborder shopping, an argument repeatedly used by Ontario retailers for wide-open Sundays, has proved inconclusive. Mark Startup, president of the Retail Merchants Association of B.C., points out that “B.C. has 12 per cent of total national retail sales but we have 25 per cent of the same-day trips to the U.S. – and yet we’ve had Sunday shopping for ten years.”
Sunday shopping: lawbreaker goes scot free
Toronto – The Ontario government has dropped all charges against Marty Herzog, a North York music storee owner, for opening on Sundays. He had been charged 37 times and fined $5,000 for each Sunday he opened – a total of $185,000.
But the Attorney General’s office claims that this acquittal will have no bearing on the case of furrier Paul Magder, who owes almost $1 million in fines and faces charges of contempt of court.
There are currently between 1,000 and 3,000 other outstanding charges related to Sunday shopping. Very few people believe the government means to prosecute any of these.
Montreal – Meanwhile removal of the Sunday shopping ban in Ontario may influence a neighboring province. The Montreal Gazette carried a story early in June headed, “Ontario’s move prods Quebec to review Sunday-shop rules.” Industry and Commerce minister Gerald Tremblay promised a quick review of the present restrictions, even though he himself does not favor extending Sunday shopping.
Quebec Minister favors euthanasia
At a national health minister’s conference in Ottawa in June 1992, Quebec minister Marc-Yvan Cote gave vent to his innermost thoughts: “If you prolong the life of somebody for five years, but he’s unconscious for the whole time, you have to ask yourself some questions about the efficiency of the service.”
As Dr. Augustine Roy, head of the Quebec Corporation of Physicians, and no pr0-life friend himself, told the Montreal Gazette, “Cote almost suggested using euthanasia to settle the problem of senior citizens using health funds.” The goal of medicare, Roy made clear, is to assure that everyone in society, including seniors, receives health services when needed.
In the very same week as Cote’s statement, the same Roy revealed that a Quebec doctor who performed euthanasia two years ago had merely been reprimanded rather than subjected to criminal charges. A disciplinary committee did not recommend prosecution because of the circumstances: the patient was near death, and was screaming in pain, and the doctor “followed his patients pleas.”
Margaret Somerville of McGill’s center for medicine and ethics pointed out in comment that fundamental human right to pain relief does not back lethal injections. “Just because there appears to be a lot of euthanasia going on, that doesn’t mean it would be allowed.”
Hell Hounds
TORONTO – As the 125th anniversary of Canadian nationhood approached, the newspapers kept assuring Canadians that they are wonderful people – kindly, tolerant, neither boastful nor arrogant like the citizens of some other countries .
As he and his wife approached the front door of the downtown Toronto Holiday Inn on the evening of June 27, one widely traveled person observed, however, that Canada is not a sane exception in an insane world. All the strange groups which come to extremist demonstrations in other countries were well represented at a pro-abortion rally right there. They had come to vent their hatred at Cardinal John O’Connor and the other 950 people attending the “Save the Planet’s People” conference.
They came in response to a crude blood-red wall poster advertisement accusing these people of being responsible for the deaths of 250,000 women every year through botched abortions.
They were all there – the Marxist-Leninists, the Grays, the Lesbians, the Canadian offshoot of ACT-UP, the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics, WAC, Catholics of Greater Rochester for Choice and, of course, NAC – the National Action Committee on the Status of Women. Their presence was especially grating because many of the Canadian groups receive federal funding – given taxpayers’ money so that they could yell with the rest, “F— Cardinal O’Connor.”
The kid of people who would urinate or defecate in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York have made their appearance in Canada as well. Their violent language would have turned into violent action if the police had not been present.
In other words, some of our fellow Canadians are neither kindly nor tolerant. Here they behaved like fiends.
What was the Cardinal’s response?
As he put it, the premise of the Christian religion and of democracy is that all people possess an intrinsic worth and dignity. So even those who try to turn themselves into fiends deserve prayers.
Feminists on the march
OTTAWA – “It’s time to get militant,” said NAC president Judy Rebick on June 8, as she prepared for the 20th anniversary celebration of the setting up of her organization, demanding to be heard at the Constitution talks. Her comments were full of the tired rhetoric of the militant feminists: women “are not prone to take a back seat any more,” they are “sick and tired of men running the country and the world, “ and the men “have done a lousy job.” Moreover, women have been “much too polite.”
When has Judy Rebick ever been “much too polite”?
Judy Rebick announced what NAC would press for when given a hearing: nothing less than equal representation of women in the Senate, a recognition of gender equality in the constitution, and a new electoral structure to enable more women to secure nominations for Parliament. Typically modest demands.
