Canada
MP Francine Lalonde (BQ, La Pointe-de-I’lle), who has introduced three private member’s bill to legalize euthanasia, announced she will not seek re-election as she continues her personal battle against cancer. Her latest attempt to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide was defeated in April by a 228-59 vote … The National Parole Board relaxed Robert Latimer’s parole conditions and will now permit him to spend five days away from the Victoria, B.C., halfway house he has been living in for the past two years. The board reconsidered the conditions after a Federal Court ordered it to revisit an earlier decision to deny Latimer special privileges … The Canadian Association of Retired Persons released an online poll that claimed 71 per cent of respondents agree that euthanasia should be permitted. Susan Eng, a CARP spokesman, said that the poll does not necessarily mean that euthanasia should be legalized. She told the Montreal Gazette, the results indicate people “are afraid of a bad death. They’re afraid when the end comes and it gets ugly, that they’re in terrible pain or lose all their dignity, that they don’t have a way out” … Marion Cooper, president of the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention, said “it’s premature to have a position on assisted suicide when we don’t have a national strategy on suicide prevention” … Dalton McGuinty told the Ottawa Citizen that Ontario will not hold hearings on euthanasia and assisted-suicide, like those underway in Quebec. “That’s not the kind of thing we’re looking at pursuing in a formal way,” he said, leaving the door open to addressing the issue informally … The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. was attacked by opposition MPPs who said that the new instant $1,000 prize for quick-pick poker cards will lure low-income and young players. The NDP called for a halt to new lottery games. Greg McKenzie, senior vice president of lotteries at the OLG, told the Toronto Star, “The lottery business is largely an aging business, so we’re looking for a younger customer” … The Toronto City Council endorsed the Vienna Declaration, which calls for the decriminalizing of drugs so that public health officials can pursue policies of “harm reduction” such as free drug injection sites and dispensing clean needles.
United States
U.S. District Chief Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that the Obama administration’s funding of destructive human embryonic stem cell research violated the “unambiguous” Dickey-Wicker Amendment which prohibits federal taxpayer dollars from paying for research that destroys human embryos. The Justice Department argued that the embryos were already destroyed and thus violated no law. Judge Lamberth imposed a temporary injunction against such research until higher courts could hear expected appeals of his decision. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington stayed Judge Lamberth’s injunction, therefore re-instating National Institutes of Health funding of ESCR … Abortionist Rapin Osathanondh of Hyannis, Mass., was sentenced to six months in jail and up to nine months home confinement after pleading guilty to the involuntary manslaughter of Laura Hope Smith who was 13 weeks pregnant when she died at his facility in 2007. During the abortion procedure she stopped breathing and Osathanondh lacked basic resuscitation equipment or training to save her. When the Board of Registration in Medicine revoked his license earlier this year, it said he “failed to timely initiate a call to 911, failed to maintain an adequate airway (and) failed to adhere to basic cardiac life support protocol” … Before the United Nations review of the Millennium Development Goals – which includes improving maternal health – Rep. Chris Smith (R, NJ) wrote in the Washington Post: “The overarching and noble goal is reducing global poverty , but the most compelling and achievable objectives — huge reductions in maternal and child mortality worldwide — will be severely undermined if the Obama administration either directly or covertly integrates abortion into the final outcome document.”
International
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named Michelle Bachelet, the pro-abortion former Socialist president of Chile, as the first Under-Secretary-General for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) … A Japanese report has questioned the existence of more than 234,000 Japanese centenarians after the Justice Ministry was unable to locate them. The study suggests that families have hidden deaths from officials in order to continue receiving old age benefits. In August, police discovered the mummified corpse of Sogen Kato, 32 years after his death, prompting the Justice Ministry survey of those over 100 years of age. The government was able to confirm the existence of 40,399 centenarians … An Irish Times/Behaviour Attitudes’ social poll found that 67 per cent of respondents believe “gay marriage” legislation should be legalized and that 46 per cent support homosexuals being allowed to adopt children.