A flood of critical court cases is expected across Canada in the next few years as pro-abortionists and others try to use various dangerous clauses in the new Canadian Charter of Rights to bring in abortion on demand, etc. It is vital, therefore, that the pro-life movement in this country have on call lawyers who are knowledgeable and up-to-date on all the ramifications of such “life” issues as abortion, euthanasia, infanticide, test tube babies, etc.

To this end, a special group has been formed within the Canadian pro-life movement, Advocates for Human Life, and an important seminar was attended by forty pro-life lawyers from around the country and was chaired by John Stephens, Q.C. of Toronto.

The Keynote speaker was Professor John D. Gorby, professor of Constitutional Law at the John Marshall Law School, Chicago, Illinois and one of the founders of the successful pro-life lawyers in the States. Professor Gorby spoke first on the constitutional problems with regard to the pro-life issue in the United States with special emphasis on how U.S. problems relate to the new Canadian Constitution. Professor Gorby was also the guest speaker during the luncheon, at which time he gave much practical advice, based on his own experience as an active pro-life lawyer in the U.S. In particular, he emphasized the importance of pro-life intervention at the lower court level, rather than waiting for the appeal level. This, he states, is due to the fact that the Attorney General prosecuting in these cases does not know about the life issues, and, in many cases, simply does not care about them and therefore pro-life material is not admitted as court evidence.

Other speakers at the conference were C. Gwendolyn Landolt (Toronto), who gave an overview of Right to Life cases in Canada; David Lehler, Q.C. (Ottawa) who has successfully obtained four temporary injunctions prohibiting abortions; the final speaker was professor in Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology at McMaster University, Hamilton, who addressed the seminar on the issue of surrogate motherhood and embryo transplants. Background material was distributed at the seminar on the various life issues, as well as the legal precedents for abortion injunctions relief.