Canada
A Catholic Insight analysis of voting records and public statements finds that 72 per cent of Catholic MPs support Bill C-38, the government’s legislation redefining marriage to include homosexual couples. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that 93 per cent of Quebec Catholic MPs support C-38, compared to 60 per cent of Catholic MPs in the rest of Canada … Several pro-life MPs have announced they will not seek re-election, including Conservatives Werner Schmidt (Kelowna-Lake Country) and Dale Johnston (Wetaskawin). Liberal Rose-Marie Ur (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex) has also announced her retirement from politics … Former Wetaskawin MP Willie Littlechild was defeated in his bid to re-enter politics in the nomination race to replace Johnston. Littlechild introduced numerous pro-life amendments to C-43, Brian Mulroney’s 1989 abortion bill … Former Promise Keeperspresident David Sweet has won the Conservative nomination in Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale. He ran for the Tories in that riding in 2004 … Cindy Silver, executive director of the Christian Legal Fellowship and staff lawyer for Focus on the the Family Canada, won the Conservative nomination for North Vancouver. Former Focus on the Family president Darrell Reid won the Conservative Party nomination in Richmond, B.C.
United States
A new poll by Opinion Dynamics, and released by Fox News, reveals that 78 per cent of Americans believe a female under age 18 should be required by state law to notify at least one parent or guardian before having an abortion … The House of Representatives passed the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act in a 270-157 vote. President George W. Bushurged the Senate to support the legislation, so that “parents of pregnant minors can provide counsel, guidance and support to their children (and) be involved in these decisions” … Senator Ken Salazar (D, Col.), an abortion advocate, called Focus on the Family “the anti-christ of the world” and claimed the Christian Right has “essentially tried to hijack the American government” … Don Feder has founded Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation, an organizaton that defends Christians against anti-Christian bias in media and politics. Former Boston Herald columnist Feder explains the need for the group: “By maintaining their loyalty to the eternal values revealed at Sinai, Christians have become pariahs in the eyes of the establishment, but heroes in our eyes” … The Archdiocese of New York has determined Marymount Manhattan College is no longer a Catholic institution, after it invited pro-abortion Senator Hillary Clinton (D, N.Y) to give its commencement address and receive an honourary degree … The New York Sun reports that “Rapists and other offenders convicted of the most serious sex crimes have been able, for the past several years, to get the erection-enhancement wonder drug Viagra for free through Medicaid, the government-financed health-insurance program for the poor” … Washington D.C. radio host Elliot Segal of DC101 ran a contest to find the listener who had the most abortions. One caller calling himself K-Dog said that his first and second wife had 16 abortions between them.
Reprotech
Scientists at Seoul National University in Korea have cloned human embryos by re-engineering human eggs. Dr. Woo Suk Hwang and his colleagues took those eggs and created 11 new lines human embryonic stem cells, although they admit much more research must be done before they are “safe” for therapuetic use in humans. The National Postreports that Canadian scientists are eager to work with the Korean cell lines, although such research is illegal in Canada. Timothy Caulfield, research director of the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta, said the Korean cloning “success” should force a reappraisal of Canada’s stem cell research and cloning laws, which are already permissive, although they purportedly don’t permit human cloning … Dr. Dario Fauza of Boston’s Children’s Hospital has found that amniotic fluid, like umbilical cord blood, contains stem cells that can be used to repair severe birth defects. Fauza said: “People always thought that amniotic fluid was just a deposit of dying cells … but that’s not true. They are very vibrant cells” … Doctors at Queen Victoria Hospital in East Sussex, U.K., have successfully restored sight in 40 patients using adult stem cells to repair damaged cornea … According to the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at Duke University Medical Center’s Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Program and The Clinical Center for the Study of Development & Learning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are able to cure children with the fatal genetic disorder Krabbe Disease and preserve their brain development through a treatment involving stem cells from umbilical cord blood … Advocates of embryonic stem cell research told the Chicago Sun Times that they have 230 votes, 18 more than are necessary, to pass HR 810, a bill that would overturn Bush’s 2001 ban on such research.
World
Socialist Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio has announced that a national referendum on abortion will be delayed until late 2006. It was originally planned for June 2005. Pro-lifers in Portugal are hoping that a pro-life Social Democratic Party candidate is elected president in next spring’s national elections. Sampaio has attempted several times during his decade-long reign to liberalize the country’s abortion laws. A majority of voters wanted the status quo maintained in a 1998 referendum … By a vote of 138-26, with five abstentions, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has rejected a draft resolution on “assistance to patients at the end of life,” a report submitted by member of European Parliament Dick Marty of Switzerland …At least 250 pharmacies in Belgium are selling euthanasia kits for the equivalent of $77 (US). Yahoo.com reports they are supposed to make it easier for doctors to help patients commit euthanasia at home, where 40 per cent of euthanasia cases occur … The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, a British publication, reports on a study that provides evidence of a link between abortion and subsequent premature births. The study of 2,837 births found that French women who had previously had an abortion were 1.7 times more likely to give birth at under 28 weeks’ gestation. Dr Caroline Moreau, who led the study, said: “Clearly, there is a link. The results suggest that induced abortion can damage the cervix in some way that makes a premature birth more likely in subsequent pregnancies” … The Archives of Disease in Childhood journal reports that girls as young as 10 are being prescribed the birth control pill by doctors. While theBritish Medical Association has no problem with this fact, Professor Peter Helms, a co-author of the report, said: “You just wonder about the circumstances of the sexual relationships they are having … There is the possibility of sexual abuse going on” … The upper chamber in Iran’s legislature has rejected a bill that would have permitted abortion in cases of disability … The office of German chancellor Gerhard Schroder denied reports in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that the German leader was going to promote human cloning research in a planned June speech at the University of Göttingen … The Indian Medical Association has called for India to adopt a one-child policy similar to China’s. A number of states already use coercive methods to prevent large families, such as withholding government jobs, benefits and subsidies if couples have more than three children … The Guardian reports that an Israeli government investigation has uncovered evidence that researchers in 10 hospitals carried out thousands of experiments on children and incapacitated patients. including piercing children’s eardrums and testing experimental drugs on elderly patients with senile dementia … Feminist outfit Women’s Link Worldwide has instigated a legal challenge in Colombia’s Constitutional Court to try to decriminalize abortion. WLW is funded by the UN Population Fund and the European Commission.
The big, gay world
The homosexual World Pride parade, scheduled to held in Jerusalem in August, has been indefinitely postponed. Organizers say political turmoil between Israel and the Palestinian territories is the cause, but event critics note that religious opposition in the city at the centre of the world’s three monotheistic religions is more likely the cause … With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, two Kansas City lesbians are suing the state of Missouri, because they are being denied adoption rights by the Missouri Department of Social Services. The department is enforcing DSS policy, which does not “knowingly license as a foster parent any person who declares themself to be a homosexual” … Joe Shirley Jr., head of the Navajo Nation, has vetoed the Navajo Council’s unanimous decision to ban legal recognition of homosexual unions, saying that it was a non-issue for his Indian tribe. In Navajo culture, marriage is far more about the uniting of families and the raising of children than about the individual union of the spouses. However, Shirley added that opposition to homosexual unions goes against the Navajo teaching of “nondiscrimination and doing no psychological or physical harm to others” … Massachusetts’s Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Margaret Marshall said in a commencement speech at Brandies University that when politicians, academics and journalists complain of judicial activism, they are threatening the independence of the judiciary. In 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Court extended marriage rights to gay couples sparking a storm of protest … Warsaw mayor Lech Kaczynski vowed to ban a gay rights parade for the second year running … Elliot Spitzer, New York Attorney General and leading candidate to become governor in 2006, told theEmpire State Pride Agenda spring dinner in Rochester that he favoured extending marriage rights to homosexual couples.