9. Fr. Van Hee charged with violating Ontario bubble zone law
On Oct. 24, Fr. Tony Van Hee, a long-time pro-life presence on Parliament Hill, was arrested for violating Ontario’s Safe Access to Abortion Services Act, which bans any pro-life activity within 50-metres of abortion facilities. Fr. Van Hee was not demonstrating against abortion or counselling women, but rather was holding a placard near an abortuary in opposition to the bubble zone law itself, without reference to abortion. His sign said “The Primacy of Free Speech: Cornerstone of Western Civilization,” on one side, and “Without Free Speech The State is a Corpse” on the other. The case has been adjourned to Jan. 24. Fr. Van Hee said he will refuse to pay any fine and go on a hunger strike if he is sentenced to time in jail.
8. Italy, Hungary, Poland reverse leftward lurch on social issues
Several European countries have taken a stand against the further liberalization of abortion and family law. In Italy, Matteo Salvini’s La Lega coalition government announced a comprehensive new pro-family government policy to encourage Italians to have more children, with the plan being partially funded by a tax on migrants who send cash back overseas. Salvini said he wants Italian couples to have more children and announced the creation of the Ministry of the Family to help families boost fertility. Salvini said, “At the end of this mandate, the government will be measured on the number of newborns more than on its public debt.” The government has also announced new shared parenting regulations for couples that divorce. Under Hungarian President Viktor Orban, pro-family policies such as paid childcare leave, family tax benefits and housing allowance, tax allowances that encourage young couples to marry, vacation benefits, no-charge holiday camps for children, subsidized textbooks, and decreased utility costs, the country has seen an increase in fertility and decline in abortion by a third since 2010. This year Katalin Novàk, Hungarian Minister of State for the Family, Youth and International Affairs, said that “A precondition of the medium and long-term social development and the sustainability of Hungary is a lasting turn in demographic trends.” In December, Poland and Hungary vetoed the inclusion of the LGBTIQ acronym in a joint EU statement by employment and social affairs ministers meant to promote “gender equity in the digital era,” although the Austrian president of the session reinserted it as a “president conclusion.”
7. Abortion services expanded in Atlantic Canada
In recent years, modest restrictions on abortion in the Atlantic Canadian provinces have been removed, a trend that continued in 2018. In Prince Edward Island, which started committing surgical abortions in Charlottetown in 2016 and providing chemical abortions in Summerside the following year, the provincial Liberal government of Wade MacLauchlan began distributing the abortion drug Mifegymiso in a satellite office in the provincial capital in the spring. In Nova Scotia, women seeking abortions had required a doctor’s referral to an abortionist, like any patient would to see a specialist, but beginning on Feb. 5, the Liberal government of Premier Stephen McNeil lifted the requirement and rolled out a toll free number for abortion-minded women to make their own appointments. On Sept. 1, Dwight Ball’s Liberal government in Newfoundland began paying for universal coverage of the abortion pill Mifegymiso, which is prescribed by physicians, regional health authorities and the Athena Clinic in St. John’s.
6. Alberta and Ontario enact, Manitoba rejects bubble zone law
On May 30, the Alberta legislature voted into law an anti-free speech bubble zone around the province’s two stand-alone abortion facilities, the Kensington Clinic in Calgary and Women’s Health Options in Edmonton, after the United Conservative Party of Alberta MLAs boycotted the vote calling Bill 9 a political ploy. It prohibits pro-life demonstrations or communications within 50 metres of the abortuaries and imposes a maximum penalty for a first offence at $5,000 and/or six months in jail, while repeat offenders face fines and jail sentences twice that long. In Manitoba, the Progressive Conservative majority voted down a private member’s bill that would have enacted a similar bubble zone in that province. Premier Brian Pallister said Bill 200 endangered freedom of speech. In Ontario, the bubble zone pass by the Liberal government with the cooperation of the opposition NDP and PCs in October 2017, came into effect in February. Two arrests have been made under the law, both in Ottawa.
5. Niger, Kenya reject Marie Stopes’ abortion agenda
In November, two African countries took action against international abortion giant, Marie Stopes International (MSI). Niger demanded MSI stop carrying out abortions in the west African nation where abortion is illegal. The government closed two MSI health centres, charging the outfits with violating the country’s abortion law. Meanwhile, in Kenya, the government of Uhuru Kenyatta accused the Marie Stopes organization of promoting abortion in radio advertisements and ordered it to stop committing abortions in its facilities in the country. MSI denies it breaks the law in either country but will not categorically state that it does not carry out illegal abortions.
4. Pro-abortion violence against pro-lifers
After Campaign Life Coalition’s Marie-Claire Bissonnette released video of being roundhouse kicked at the LifeChain in Toronto in September, it came to light that her assailant, Jordan Hunt, had also attacked participants in a Canadians for Bioethical Reform demonstration in Toronto in August. He was charged with eight counts of assault and seven counts of mischief under $5,000, between the two incidents. He case has been put off until mid-January. On Oct. 1, Katie Somers of Toronto Against Abortion, was allegedly assaulted by Gabriela Skwarko, an assistant at Ryerson’s Social Innovation Office and a member of the Ryerson Reproductive Justice Collective, during a demonstration at Ryerson University. Skwarko was later charged with assault and assault with a weapon.
3. Ireland legalizes abortion
On May 25, 66.4 per cent of Irish voters backed the referendum, Repeal the Eighth, the 1983 Irish constitutional amendment that outlawed abortion in the Irish Republic. Prime Minister Leo Varadkar responded with a law that legalized abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and allowed abortion to protect the health or life of the mother, in cases of fetal abnormalities, or if there is a risk of death to the newly born child within four weeks of birth. The Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Billwas passed with overwhelming majority support in both the upper and lower houses of the Irish parliament and was signed into law on Dec. 13 by President Michael D. Higgins.
2. Justin Trudeau imposes ideological litmus test for summer jobs
Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government faced widespread criticism in early 2018 for imposing an ideological litmus test in requiring companies, charities, and non-profit organizations to sign an attestation that they support Charter rights and values, namely abortion, same-sex “marriage” and transgender rights. Patty Hadju, Minister of Employment, Workforce, and Labour clarified that the heavy-handed policy was meant to prevent groups from accessing summer job funding to hire students who would take part in work where the “core mandate” was to advocate pro-life and traditional values. When the government released its 2019 guidelines on Dec. 6, it did not require a blanket affirmation of abortion and gay rights, but rather required recipients to pledge that the jobs funding “will not be used to undermine or restrict the exercise of rights legally protected in Canada.” While some churches welcomed the new policy, many critics of the original attestation policy say it still imposes an ideological litmus test for jobs funding and demeans the endeavours of pro-life students as second-class citizens unworthy of government support.
1. Tanya Granic Allen runs for Ontario PC leadership
After Patrick Brown resigned in disgrace as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, parental rights activist Tanya Granic Allen announced she was running for leadership of the party. She came in a strong fourth with nearly 15 per cent of the vote, just behind presumptive frontrunner Caroline Mulroney. During the leadership campaign, she foisted the sex-education issue into the political consciousness of the province, memorably saying during a debate that perhaps math scores would improve if students weren’t learning about anal sex. Doug Ford courted Granic Allen’s socially conservative supporters by speaking out against Kathleen Wynne’s radical sex-ed curriculum. Most of Granic Allen’s support swung behind Doug Ford in subsequent rounds, propelling him to a narrow victory over three-time losing candidate Christine Elliott. After Ford became Premier, he scrapped Wynne’s sex-ed program and announced a new round of consultations, the outcome of which will not be known until later in 2019. Even the media credit Granic Allen’s influence for Ford fulfilling his campaign promise to re-examine the Wynne sex-ed curriculum. CLC national president Jeff Gunnarson says her campaign is proof of the difference one individual can make in the political process.
