Canada
The Canadian Abortion Rights Action League is changing its name to the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. In October, CARAL officially closed its Ottawa doors, only to reopen under its new name. CARAL’s website explained: “Now that abortion is just one of the many reproductive services available to women, CARAL has closed its doors and discontinued its activities” …
Svend Robinson, the openly gay former NDP MP from Burnaby-Douglas, B.C. who resigned last year after stealing an expensive diamond ring, has announced he will return to federal politics in the next election, challenging feminist Liberal MP Hedy Fry in Vancouver Centre …
Respected pro-life and pro-family independent MP Pat O’Brien (London-Fanshawe, Ont.) has announced he will not seek re-election. The former Liberal left the party this spring over Prime Minister Paul Martin’s handling of the same-sex “marriage” issue …
Pro-abortion and anti-marriage independent MP Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga-Erindale) has also announced she will not run in the next federal election. She was kicked out of the Liberal caucus last year after criticizing the prime minister …
Justice Minister Irwin Cotler has appointed nine MPs, academics and legal professionals to a committee to review a list of five to eight candidates for the next Supreme Court opening, when Justice Jack Major retires in December. The committee is not allowed to question the candidates Cotler suggests, leading constitutional expert Peter Russell to call the process “a limited step forward” …
Disgraced former Chretien-era cabinet minister Alfonso Gagliano, who was recalled as ambassador to Denmark after his involvement in Adscam became public, is advising the Union of Christian Democrats in the upcoming Italian election …
United States
The United States Senate votes 78-22 to approve Judge John Roberts as the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Pro-abortion organizations opposed Roberts’ nomination and some pro-life groups expressed reservations about past statements that indicated he would allow Roe v. Wade to stand …
President George W. Bush appoints a White House legal counsel to the U.S. Supreme Court. While some Christian leaders have come to Harriet Miers’ defence, claiming the White House has assured them she is onside, Democratic senators who have talked to Miers claim she says she has never talked about the Roe decision with anyone, ever … For the fourth year in a row, the Bush administration decides to withhold $34 million in funds from theUnited Nations Population Fund on the grounds that it supports China’s brutal one-child policy …
The New York Times reports that Kansas Senator Sam Brownback is seriously considering running for the Republican presidential nomination. He is a solid social conservative, lending his name to pro-life bills including a ban on cloning and embryonic stem cell research, and he supports a constitutional amendment protecting marriage …
Guadalupe Benitez, 33, is suing the North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group in Vista, Calif., after the facility refused to artificially inseminate her. She is a lesbian. DoctorsChristine Brody and Douglas Fenton cited religious objections. Legal experts expect the case to make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court …
A Pittsburgh woman has clubbed her neighbour and cut the women’s belly with a razor in an attempt to steal her unborn child. The woman was in critical condition and the baby was in stable condition after an emergency c-section saved the child …
Video game makers Sports Interactive admit their soccer game has led to the divorce of 35 couples …
ivil rights activist and outspoken critic of violent and misogynist rap music, C. Delores Tucker, dies at the age of 78.
World
Italian Health Minister Francesco Storace suspends the country’s first RU-486 experiments after a complication during one of the trial cases. A woman who took the pill had a “partial expulsion” at home and extensive bleeding. Storace says abortifacient pills are illegal under Italian law, which states that abortions must take place in hospitals …
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin unveils measures that the government hopes will dramatically increase France’s anemic fertility rate. The move is intended to slow the country’s population decline by offering cash incentives for parents who have a third child …
The Daily Telegraph reports that a growing number of British women are opting for IVF treatments, because it provides them with an “instant” pregnancy. Many professional women are not interesting in dating or even having sex with their partner …
The BBC reports that members of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologistshave warned that women are being lured by the “availability of IVF” into waiting too long to have children; sometimes, they say, until they reach their infertile years.