Bits and Pieces

Rod Bruinooge (C, Winnipeg South) is the new chair of the multi-party Parliamentary Pro-life Caucus, replacing Maurice Vellacott (C, Saskatoon-Wanuskewin). Bruinooge said in a press release, “I am honored to chair a caucus that doesn’t shy away from this vital issue.” He said that pro-life Canadians’ “concerns need to be represented” … Brian Finnemore, a retired B.C. physician and a member of the Right to Die Society of Canada, told the CBC that Canada should follow Washington state’s lead and legalize assisted suicide … Retired Liberal MP and pro-life stalwart Tom Wappel told a Campaign Life Coalition-sponsored clergy luncheon in Toronto that “I have never had a meeting with the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops” … The University of Victoria Students’ Society denied funding for Youth Protecting Youth due to the club’s pro-life stance. U Vic student David Pasivirta wrote in the CLC BC Newsletter, of the students’ society’s pro-abortion position: “Is the UVSS so blind as to not see that they are supporting the freedom of choice of only one group” … Queen’s Univeristy in Kingston has adopted the Intergroup Dialogue Program in which six trained students, one in each of the school’s residences, will monitor discussions for “spontaneous teaching moments … when social justice issues or controversial social topics arise,” with the goal of facilitating greater ‘understanding’ and ‘respect’.  Among the topics in which the official straighteners will impose themselves is homosexuality.

 A memo from from pro-abortion groups including Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America to Barack Obama revealing that they are uninterested in reducing abortion or finding common ground was made public by the president-elect’s transition team. The memo shows pro-abortion groups want abortion treated as a health care right, that insurance companies or governments pay for all abortions, and that Obama appoint cabinet members and judges only people who share his pro-abortion views. Others signing the memo include Catholics for Choice, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, and Women of Reform Judaism … Jeanne Head, veteran pro-life lobbyist and fixture at the United Nations, said of Hillary Clinton being named Secretary of State in President Obama’s cabinet: “Hillary would promote her husband’s agenda at the United Nations to make abortion a fundamental human right worldwide” … Cardinal Francis George of Chicago commented on Dignitas Personae, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s new document on bioethical issues: “Behind every ‘no’ in the difficult task of discerning between good and evil, there shines a great ‘yes’ to the recognition of the dignity and inalienable value of every single and unique human being called into existence” … A Montana First Judicial District Court has ruled that competent, terminally ill patients have the right to commit suicide after obtaining a prescription for a lethal dose of medication. Judge Dorothy McCarter said: “The Montana constitutional rights of individual privacy and human dignity, taken together, encompass the right of a competent terminally (ill) patient to die with dignity.” Robert Baxter, 75, suffers from terminal lymphocytic leukemia, filed the lawsuit in November 2007, with the assistance of Compassion and Choice, formerly the Hemlock Society. Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath said he will appeal the case.

A report from the Abortion Supervisory Committee in New Zealand revealed the government is spending more than $5 million in taxpayer funds on consultations and surgeries for 18,383 abortions. It also said that 98 per cent of abortions were approved on mental health grounds. The Zealand Right to Life group has complained about the high rate of approved abortions for mental health reasons and a High Court judicial review found reason to doubt the lawfulness of the abortions. The Abortion Supervisory Committee appealed the decision and Right to Life appealed the second ruling. The case will likely be up for another hearing later this year … Former Serbian abortionist Stojan Adasevic, who killed more than 48,000 unborn children over 26 years of doing abortions, is now a pro-life leader in the country. He explained that he converted because of a dream he had in which children in a field ran away from him in fear as a man in a black and white habit looked down on him and stared. Adasevic had this dream repeatedly and one night he asked the man who he was. He answered Thomas Aquinas. Adasevic had not known who Aquinas was because the abortionist was a product of Yugoslavia’s communist regime. The philosopher then told the abortionist the children were the unborn babies he had killed. He awoke from his dream and decided not to commit any more abortions. He is now involved in pro-life and has helped Serbian television air The Silent Scream twice … According to a Institute for Family Policy report – Abortion in Spain: 23 Years Later (1985-2008) – due to Spain’s non-existent restrictions (women can have an abortion for psychological reasons), there were more than 120,000 abortions in the country in 2007, compared to just 51,000 in 1996, making it the leading cause of death and the primary culprit for Spain’s demographic decline.