Victoria
The Catholic Women’s League passed a resolution condemning the funding of pro-abortion propaganda by the National Film Board. The League met at its national convention here during the week of August 19-23. League members also identified the film Behind the Veil: Nuns as anti-Catholic. Like the abortion movies (Morgentaler and Stories North and South) it, too, was produced by the NFB’s women team, studio D.
Edmonton
The Alberta Court of Appeal recently ruled that fatherhood begins at conception. The decision came in a Calgary man’s successful custody battle for a child he fathered out of wedlock.
Alberta’s adoption system was reported to be “in a turmoil.” The precedent-setting case gives a biological father the right to request custody of his baby if it is placed for adoption. The ruling overrides a section of the Domestic Relations Act – which says the mother is the sole guardian of a child born out of wedlock.
Toronto
Anglican Archbishop Lewis Garnsworthy appeared before the Ontario all-party legislative committee studying extension of funding for Catholic schools to grade 13, from the present level of grade 10. He attacked funding on the grounds that the democratic process was being endangered. Earlier, in April, he had referred to then Ontario premier Davis as “Hitler.”
The Anglican dignitary’s recent claims to be concerned about democracy differs greatly from his reaction at the time of the announcement over a year ago. At that time the Toronto Star, under the heading “Public ought not to pay for schools that teach Catholic values” (June 22, 1984) and other papers, reported him as saying “I, for example, don’t agree with the negative attitude the Roman Catholic Church has towards contraception. I don’t agree with the Roman Catholic position on abortion, or its teaching on planned parenthood…” He then claimed that Mr. Davis had “created a situation in which the religious and moral values of the Roman Catholic Church are to be official policy and for which we must all pay.”
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At the same extension-of-funding hearings, CARAL, the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League, did not hide its opposition to public funding for Catholic schools because of the Church’s stand on abortion. Speaking about the pluralistic society, they stated “we oppose…the use of a publicly funded institution to seek society, the legislation of those beliefs (i.e. the teachings of the Church on abortion) in our society.”
The above was related with relish by Globe and Mail pro-abortion columnist Orland French on July 30, in one of many columns he has devoted over the last six months to attacking Catholic schools.
On this occasion, French reported the views of a Roman Catholic public school teacher (who admitted not attending Church for 10 years) against Catholic school funding because he rejects the Church’s position on birth control and abortion.
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Rabbi Baruch Taub, head of the Vaad Harabonim which represents the Orthodox Rabbis in the city, has called abortion on demand “a totally untenable notion.”
The Rabbi’s statement (which appeared in the Canadian Jewish News) reads:
According to the Torah, human life is a sacred trust conveyed to us by God. We do not have title to our bodies. Only the creator who bestows life may withdraw it. Of course, where the mother’s life is endangered, she has precedence over the embryo. Otherwise, abortion constitutes foeticide, a criminal offence. We consider that sanctity and inviolability of life, encompassing also developing life, is not a matter of private religious tradition or personal judgment but a principle of universal morality and natural law, that we have a moral imperative to maintain. Therefore the notion of abortion on demand is totally untenable. At the same time, society had the obligation to provide care and support, counseling services, and relief facilities to help over-burdened families learn to cope with the blessing of additional children.
