Canada
Convicted child-killer Robert Latimer is seeking clemency for the 1993 murder of his daughter, Tracy. Latimer has asked Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould for a pardon of his second-degree conviction. Tracy was living with cerebral palsy when he poisoned her by attaching a hose from the exhaust of his truck to the cab, where she died in the family garage from carbon monoxide poisoning. Latimer argues that now that euthanasia is legal, any record of his crime should be erased. This is nonsense on stilts. Tracy Latimer’s case would not qualify for legally protected assisted-suicide under the current law that requires those being killed be adults and facing imminent death. Tracy was 12 years old and otherwise healthy (and according to court records, enjoying life). Furthermore, Robert Latimer has never shown remorse for his crime, and has, indeed, maintained he would do it again. Court documents record him saying he would have shot his daughter in the head if he had no other recourse to end her life. Remorse is typically a precondition of any pardon. After years of legal wrangling, Latimer was finally convicted in 2001; by 2008 he had won day parole and was given full parole in 2010. He has been a free man since, although he says he is stigmatized by the murder conviction. Taylor Hyatt, a policy analyst with Not Dead Yet, told Maclean’sthat she is worried about what kind of message a pardon for Latimer would send to society and people with disabilities. She said: “Down the road, more people could be inspired to share Mr. Latimer’s views and act on them by judging from the outside that a life like mine or Tracy’s is not worth living. People will be put in very real danger.”
Canadian progressives’ heads are exploding over a pro-life series of billboards currently appearing across Canada with the words “Canada has no abortion laws.” The message comes courtesy of the pro-life organization We Need a Law, whose mission is to “mobilize Canadians and persuade our political leaders to pass laws that protect children before birth.” The truth that Canada is the only democracy that does not have any abortion laws is continually refuted by the media, pro-abortionists, and the unsuspecting and gullible general public. Fact 1: Abortion in Canada was decriminalized in 1969. Fact 2: The 1988 Morgentalerdecision to throw out the 1969 abortion law on the basis that it was “unconstitutional” created a legal vacuum. Fact 3: To this day, no abortion law exists in Canada. Jim Hughes, national president of Campaign Life Coalition, wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in September 2017: “Abortion has never been declared to be a “Charter right” by the Supreme Court of Canada. In fact, the Court has specifically held that there is a legitimate right for Parliament to legislate on the issue, should it so choose.Parliament has never chosen to do so.” As a result, children in Canada can be aborted right up to the moment of birth. This harsh reality must be faced if children are to be given their rightful place in Canada. And we do not need any abortion law; we need one that protects preborn children through all nine months, without exception.
Former Liberal MP Garnet Bloomfield, who voted against the Charter in 1982, passed away on August 1 at the age of 89. After being elected to a number of local offices in the 1960s and ‘70s, Bloomfield served one term (1980-84) as a Liberal MP for London-Middlesex. He sought to return to Parliament in 1988 and lost by eight votes. He made an attempt at a political comeback in Perth-Middlesex in 1997 when he ran for the Reform Party and in 2000 for the Canadian Alliance. He lost in those elections largely due to the split on the Right at the time. Bloomfield was the lone Liberal MP to vote against the act to repatriate the Canadian Constitution in 1982 because the Charter of Rights and Freedoms did not contain a guarantee of the right to life. Jim Hughes, national president of Campaign Life Coalition, said Bloomfield would often tell the story that Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau did not punish him and, in fact, expressed admiration that the MP stood firm in his principles. Bloomfield also advocated for recognition of the Supremacy of God in the Charter. Bloomfield was predeceased by his wife Mildred and his son Keith and is survived by his daughter Marlene.
United States
In the upcoming November midterm elections, three states have been successful in getting pro-life initiatives on to the ballot. Voters in Alabama and West Virginia will decide whether their state constitutions will clarify that they do not guarantee a “right” to abortion or abortion funding. Oregon voters will be asked whether they want a constitutional amendment to forbid taxpayer funding of abortion.
Kermit Gosnell was an American abortionists who operated an abortuary in Philadelphia. In 2010, he was raided by police on a tip that he was running a “pill mill.” However, the authorities found much more than pill pushing. Further investigation revealed that he had murdered a number of women who had come to his “clinic” for abortions, and had also broken numerous state laws surrounding his abortuary. He was convicted and is serving a life sentence in prison. A movie about him and his trial will be released in the U.S. on Oct. 12. Dates and locations for Canadian viewing are not yet available. Rebel Mediahas been following the movie’s development and crowdfunded to assist in the production. Ezra Levant interviewed one of the producers recently who revealed that Rebel subscribers had contributed a considerable portion of the crowdfunding. You can read an interview with the husband/wife producers and view the trailer Gosnell: The trial of America’s biggest serial killingat The Stream.org, Aug. 15.
International
Matteo Salvini, Italy’s new Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, has set out his government’s priorities in blunt terms: “A country which does not create children is destined to die” (BreitbartLondon, July 29). He laid out the foundations of the Ministry of the Family which will “work on fertility, nurseries, and a fiscal system that takes large families into account.” The bill asserts that marriage between a man and a woman is the foundation of the family. It will also seek to discourage abortions, pay cash for those with children under the age of three, and provide free daycare and introduce new tax deductions. With the introduction of the family bill and the closing of Italy’s ports to NGO migrant ferries, Salvini and his party, La Lega, are enjoying immense popularity among Italians.
The U.S. Institute for Family Studies (IFS) released a study on July 10 entitled Is Hungary experiencing a policy-induced baby boom, based on Hungary’s 2015 policy whereby families would be given generous subsidies to buy or build a home and the subsidies would scale up based on their marital status and number of children. The study concluded that “it is not through the direct incentivization of childbearing, but through the indirect incentivization of marriage”that the baby boom in Hungary is being realized. “Marriage makes childbearing much more likely among the vast majority of women who desire to have kids,” the IFS concluded.
