Canada
According to an Ipsos Reid poll for Postmedia News and Global TV, 35 per cent of Canadians thought the federal Conservatives best reflected the values and needs of today’s families, while 27 per cent said the same of the NDP and just 19 per cent favoured the Liberals. John Wright, senior vice president of Ipsos Reid, said, “What was … more instructive out of this poll was not so much the Tories themselves and how they’ve been able to capture that vote, but the utter loss of the Liberal Party to come anywhere close” … Linda Gibbons was remanded to custody following a Sept. 30 court appearance. Following the latest delay, Judge Mara Beth Greene of the College Park Court, set an Oct. 29 court date and said that if there were further delays in the case, Gibbons would not be subject to any additional jail time … The Ontario Court of Appeal is deciding whether a 29-year-old woman with postpartum depression should be convicted of infanticide instead of murder for killing her two infant sons in 1998 and 2002. “Anybody with a pre-existing personality disorder that is exacerbated by the normal stress of being a parent will be able to argue they should be convicted of infanticide instead of murder,” countered Crown attorney Jennifer Woolcombe in the landmark case … Landlord Will Goertzen was ordered by the Northwest Territories Human Rights Commission to pay a total of $13,000 in damages and $400 in lost wages to a gay couple after he refused to give them rental accommodation. Goertzen said he feared God’s wrath if he rented to them … The Ontario Bar Association presented a report to Attorney General Chris Bentley calling for the inclusion of a “user charge” in the cost for marriage licenses to help pay for divorce reforms such as case workers for “triage families” and an increase in mediation services … Giant Tiger, a discount retailer, apologized and promised not to display any more Playboy merchandise in future flyers after parents complained about Playboy-branded underwear, bras, and thongs in a back-to-school flyer. According to the store, the items, marked ‘junior’, were intended for an older demographic.
United States
Linda Meek, former head of the Reproductive Services abortion facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma, pled guilty to falsely reporting a bomb threat the previous month. She admitted to faking a bomb scare by hiding an egg timer in a trash can at her own facility. The same facility was the target an a bombing in 1997. Meeks could face five years in jail and $250,000 in fines; she is scheduled to be sentenced in U.S. District Court in January … As part of the 2010 midterm elections, Planned Parenthood has launched a campaign to make birth control available for free to every woman under federal health care reform. “Affordable prescription birth control is an essential part of health care for millions of women,” states Planned Parenthood on its political action website. “The time has come to provide birth control at no cost to every woman who wants it” … NARAL Pro-Choice America had a slogan contest for stickers to be distributed at the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert political rallies on Oct. 30 and the finalists to be voted upon included: Vote pro-choice. Politicians make crappy doctors; Restore sanity: Vote pro-choice!; Just another sane, pro-choice voter; Sanity is voting pro-choice!; Pro-choice is the sane choice. Pro-life blogger Jill Stanek said she found it insane that the pro-abortion movement would equate baby killing and sanity … US health officials said on Sept. 23 that almost one in five gay and bisexual men in 20 major American cities have HIV. The study issued by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also estimated that about half of them do not know they are infected.
International
Spain’s Equality Minister Bibiana Aído said unborn human children are not human beings. Aido said “a country is not worthy if even one person is suffering mistreatment.” Carlos Salvador, an opposition parliamentarian for the Union of the People of Navarra party, asked how her views aligned with the country’s recently liberalized abortion laws. Aido replied: “Having an abortion does not suppose that a human life is terminated, because there does not exist a unanimous opinion regarding the concept of a human being … because ‘human life’ refers to a complex concept based on ideas or beliefs that are philosophical, moral, social, and ultimately, subject to opinions or personal preferences” … Speaking at the Human Life International congress in Rome, John Smeaton, executive director of the U.K.-based Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, condemned efforts to establish abortion as an international human right saying it flies in the face of natural law and the concept of universal human rights that arose in the wake of World War II. Smeaton said under modern human rights advocacy by groups such as Amnesty International and various United Nations agencies, “human rights (have) become anti-human” … LifeSiteNews.com officially launched a Spanish language service, Agencia de Noticias de Vida Humana y Familia (Human Life and Family News Agency).