Canada
A Liberal party mailing from leader Stephane Dion to thousands of households in the Vancouver East riding has criticized the Conservatives for “dithering” in their handling of the InSite “safe injection” drug site and claims that “harm reduction saves lives.” Elizabeth Whiting, the party’s communications director, defended the mailing by saying InSite’s funding is a “major issue.” Earlier this year, Health Minister Tony Clement announced a six-month extension of the program’s funding through mid-2008, while the government reviews the pilot project … REAL Women of Canada has written a letter to the Ontario Progressive Conservative caucus, warning that if they keep socially liberal John Tory as leader of the party and a “Liberal-lite” platform, the PCs will go down to defeat again in 2011 … Campaign Life Coalition British Columbia has set up a special account to cover university students’ legal costs for fighting student union and university administrations that stand in the way of establishing recognized pro-life clubs … The Canadian Taxpayers Federation notes that the International Planned Parenthood Federation was among the top 100 grant recipients by the federal government in 2006-2007, getting $18 million from the Canadian International Development Agency for “sexual and reproductive health and rights” …The Toronto Star reports that many Canadian parents face daily commutes of one-hour each way and that the travel time to work is cutting into time with their families. Michael Barrett, a father of six and an executive at Gay Lea Foods who drives a 150-km round-trip daily, told the paper, “I will leave in the dark, come home in the dark and I’m always in the dark about what’s going on in the family.”
United States
The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation and Priests for Life have jointly announced the establishment of the “International Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Terri Schindler Schiavo and All of Our Vulnerable Brothers and Sisters” – “Terri’s Day” – to be observed each year on March 31, the date of Terri’s death … Fielding questions from CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about whether Supreme Court of the United States appointments would have to be pro-abortion, Democratic front-runners Senators Hillary Clinton (NY), Christopher Dodd (Conn.) and Barack Obama, (Ill.) along with former senator John Edwards (NC), all said their SCOTUS appointments would be pro-abortion, although Clinton, Dodd and Obama each used the word “privacy” to signify abortion … After carefully reviewing the available research on spanking, the American College of Pediatricians has released a position statement that endorses the right of parents to use corporal punishment: “It is clear that parents should not solely rely upon disciplinary spanking to accomplish control of their child’s behaviour. Evidence suggests that it can be a useful and necessary part of a successful disciplinary plan” … Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (D) has rejected a $250,000 federal grant for abstinence education and says the state will eliminate abstinence education completely.
International
Chris Davies, a Liberal Democrat member of the European Parliament from the United Kingdom, has told the BBC that families should be encouraged to have one child in an effort to battle climate change and that family planning be made more widely available. Davies said: “While every individual should be cherished, mankind’s reproduction is akin to the replication of a virus. We are swamping the planet and devouring its resources” … Marina Carolina, a Santiago prostitute, auctioned 27 hours of sex to help raise $4,000 for Teleton, a two-day fundraiser to help Chile’s poor and disabled children. Said Carolina, “One client already paid. It seemed like a good deed to him” … With a grant from the William and Flora Hewitt Foundation, the Management Sciences for Health is promoting contraception in predominantly Muslim Afghanistan as part of its Accelerating Birth Spacing Practices Project. A city official from Farza has said, “Eight months ago, talking about contraception was a taboo. Nowadays, people easily talk about birth spacing practice and its importance. No matter where people get together, birth spacing has become a value within our people and they know it’s the most effective and quick way to reduce maternal and child death” … After nine years of adjudication, the Supreme Court of El Salvador has ruled against Roxana Ivonne Marti and Jose Fernando Marroquin, who claimed that the nation’s 1998 law banning abortions, which does not specify exceptions of any kinds, is unconstitutional. However, the court also said the prohibition of abortion must be balanced against the constitutional “rights” of pregnant women according to the discretion of judges, opening the door to exceptions in the law’s application. The court hinted that those rights include the three exceptions the pre-1998 law listed: rape, fetal deformities and the life of the mother.
