At Home
Fetal research nixed
Early in April, a majority (72 per cent) called Halifax’s Daily News Hotline to register their opposition to the kind of experiments being carried out at Dalhousie University using the tissue of aborted babies. “It’s an extension of the initial evil of abortion,” said Cynthia Haughn when she telephoned. “Killing in the name of healing represents the most radical of transformations and reveals how extreme the corruption of the medical profession has become.”
His master’s voice
Seven members of Canada’s Dying with Dignity attended the eighth world conference of the International Right to Die Societies from June 7 to 9 in Maastricht, Holland. Among the topics addressed was the “Right to Euthanasia or Assisted Suicide without Direct Menace of Life.”
Epp for the defense
When he is called to the everlasting court, how will once pro-life Tory MP Jake Epp defend his decision to back the government’s re-legalization of abortion? Perhaps he will plead in the same way as he did for his angry constituents when he said: “Explaining the subtleties of the debate to the public is almost impossible.” (CP, May 2, 1990)
Faithful stewards
Keynote speaker at the Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC) National Convention, Prof. Ed Ericson of Calbin College urged his audience to go public with their faith. “It would be unbearably ironic” he observed at the April 28 meeting, “If, just as [Eastern Europe] climbs up out of the abyss into the exhilarating fresh air of freedom, we in the West should lose hold of our spiritual footing and slide down the slippery slope into statist conformity and bondage.”
Shameful legacy
Years ago, a young woman had her name added to a leadership plaque presented by the Saskatoon YWCA. Today, as the YWCA plumps for abortion on demand, she insists that her name be erased from the plaque. Says Heather Stilwell, Western Coordinator for Campaign Life Coalition and past president of Alliance for Life. “How can the Y say they advocate for women – are not half of the babies aborted girls? Who speaks for them? Not the Y!
South of the Border
Erring on the side of death
Picture this: An individual has suffered a massive heart attack. The paramedic arrives on the scene. What does he do first? Check for pulse, apply mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, inject a reviving drug? Not in Montana, at least. According to a 1989 amendment to its Living Will Act, emergency medical personnel must check if the patient has a living will before he administers life-saving procedures!
Decency the winner!
States can ban the mere possession of kiddie porn the U.S. Supreme Court ruled April 28 in Osborne v. Ohio. Clyde Osborne likes photos of undressed boys in provocative poses, and for his perversion, Ohio sentenced him to six months in prison. Osborn challenged the law on the grounds that it curtailed his right of free expression. But writing for the Court, Justice Byron White notes: “Ohio enacted [the statute] in order to protect victims of child pornography; it hopes to destroy a market for the exploitative use of children.”
Daycare casualties
Defenders of universal daycare cry ‘no evidence’ against the contention of pro-family activists that to ensure a healthy, stable adulthood, the mother must be present during the first years of her child’s life. But Brenda Hunter, a mother’s rights activists claims that the evidence is all around us. The drug culture of the 1960s (and perhaps the “me-first” attitude of subsequent decades) can be traced, she says, to the emotional dislocation children suffered in government day care when women filled the jobs of absent men during World War II.
Shameful legacy
In a recent issue of the Long Island Catholic, actor Michael Moriarty likened Popes Pius XII and John Paul II to Pontius Pilate and slandered Christianity as “the breeding ground for anti-Semitism.” The Immaculate Conception chapter newsletter of Catholics United for the Faith (CUF) responded to his slurs by saying that “there are no concentration camps in the U.S., but babies are killed every day.”
Gambling with lives prohibited
By a wide margin, the Las Vegas Area Council of Parent Teachers Associations voted against contraceptive-peddling school “health clinics.” The action taken March 15 should “send a strong message to state leaders” said Area president-elect Linda Wade.
Light shines in the darkness
Terrorists have firebombed his home, smashed his windows and traumatized his family. Who is he? A Lebanese, an Ulsterman, a Sri Lankan? No, an American. He is Charles McIlhenny, the pastor of an Orthodox Presbyterian Church in San Francisco. Since he and many others foiled a municipal bill in July 1989, that would have given homosexual partners the rights and status of husband and wife, Mr. McIlhenny and his family have been the victims of late-night attacks from homosexual activists.
Baby boom: the sequel
A preliminary report form the National Center for Health Statistics reveals that the U.S. birth rate is nearing the replacement level. Demographer Ben Wattenberg of the American Enterprise Institute credits the boom to ‘thirty something women’ hurrying to have children.
Worldwide
Physicians, heal yourselves
When a doctor in the Netherlands refused to kill a patient who had requested euthanasia, the Dutch Medical Association formally reprimanded him, reports The Times of London for December 11, 1989.
Bad dreams
In the Netherlands, one group is permitted to kill off another, but euthanasia is rarely (surprise!) carried out with ease. Of the family physicians who kill, most perform one or two euthanasia procedures per year and many say they have nightmares afterwards. (Washington Post, May 4, 1990)
Bio-chemical castration
A New Zealand medical technologist has issued a strong warning against the colossal harm inflicted on women by the pill. Citing nearly 40 medical publications, The Ultimate Contraceptive, by Emmanual Van den Bemd exposes the deterioration in women’s physical and emotional health that contraceptive use causes. Mr. Van den Bemd convincingly argues that exploding health care costs are fueled by harmful methods of fertility control.
IVF a bust?
Writing in the Lancet, Britain’s prestigious medical journal, Marsden G. Wagner and Paul A. St. Clair excoriate the methods of calculating In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) rates as being used to mislead parents. The two representatives of the World Health Organization (WHO) demonstrate that the chances of a healthy baby from IVF are one in twenty.
