Coast to coast for Life Chain
ST. JOHNS’S – The Right to Life Association of Newfoundland made the October 6 Life Chain a coast-to-coast even in Canada. Newfoundland pro-lifers took part in the high-profile event to draw attention to women and unborn children harmed by abortion. The provincial Right to Life group also scheduled its annual meeting and banquet for October 26, with theologian Father Tom Lynch of St. Augustine’s Seminary, Toronto, as guest speaker. The association plans to take part in the Cabot 500 celebrations in Newfoundland in 1997. Right to Life maintains regular fund-raising activity in support of Elizabeth House, a facility for unwed mothers.
Michel Tissot denied Sacraments
MONTREAL – Montreal pro-life activist Michel Tissot has complained about being denied church sacraments since his incarceration at the city’s Bordeau Jail. Tissot has served several jail terms for violating an injunction against pro-life demonstrations. At a September hearing, Tissot said he has been unable to attend Mass or receive reconciliation since his imprisonment. He has asked to be transferred to a jail in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, where it will be easier to receive the sacraments. The complaint has raised the issue of freedom of religion for Tissot.
OSFL meeting set for Cambridge
CAMBRIDGE, Ont. – Ontario Students for Life has adopted the theme, The Culture of Life vs. the Culture of Death for its November 1-3 conference at Monsignor Doyle Catholic Secondary School in Cambridge. The conference features workshops, pro-life presentations and addresses by five prominent speakers. Also on the agenda are a presentation by the New Challenge ’96 (chastity) team and a screening of the abortion video “Eclipse of Reason.” Many in Ontario’s pro-life community have noted a greater receptiveness on the part of students to the respect for life message.
CARAL targets chastity teaching
SASKATOON – Saskatchewan pro-life groups are monitoring the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League (CARAL) in its effort to move into Saskatoon. CARAL’s Saskatchewan chapter is working to ban chastity-based sex education in the school system and to eliminate parental consent requirements for teenagers seeking abortions. Saskatchewan’s Hospital Standards Act requires women under age 18 to have their parents’ approval prior to undergoing any surgical procedure, including abortion. Pro-life groups are distressed by CARAL’s suggestion that Christian groups have too much influence in provincial schools and that chastity proponents provide students with misleading information.
B.C. NDP generous to a fault
VANCOUVER – Campaign Life Coalition of British Columbia has criticized the province’s New Democratic government for lavish spending on abortion-related causes. Despite claims of attempting to balance the provincial budget, the NDP has allotted thousands for dollars to abortion supporters, including an $88,000 grant to a private detective agency to advise abortionists on security arrangements, and a $100,000 gift to Planned Parenthood to set up a toll-free “Facts of Life Line.” Campaign Life Coalition also took exception to an 11-fold increase in the budget for the province’s Women’s Equality Ministry which is known to support wider access to abortion services.
Group blasts RU-486 proposal
KELOWNA, B.C. – Pro-life groups in British Columbia have lashed out at plans to bring the RU-486 abortion pill into Canada. The NDP government of B.C. has offered to sponsor clinical trials to RU-486 as a precursor to making the drug available nation wide. “We’re not surprised that the most pro-abortion government in North American would now move to bring the human in North America would now move to bring the human pesticide into Canada,” said Pro-Life Society president Ted Gerk. The federal health ministry has said it won’t be pressured into making a decision about the controversial drug.