Canada
Liberal leader Stephane Dion named his shadow cabinet, including pro-abortion advocatesMarlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce–Lachine) as justice critic, Bonnie Brown(Oakville) as health critic and Maria Minna (Beaches-East York) as Status of Women critic …Gai Ecoute is running an ad campaign designed to provoke discussion and reverse critical attitudes toward homosexuality. The posters include a pink and white milk carton labelled, “10 per cent homo” with the message, “C’est pas laid,” a play on lait and laid. The posters are being distributed in the province’s high schools … The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission has ruled that there are no grounds to proceed with a complaint against The Sheaf, the student newspaper of the University of Saskatchewan, after it ran an editorial cartoon in its March 2 edition depicting Jesus Christ performing a sex act with a pig.
United States
In a report, “Advancing stem cell science without destroying human life,” the Domestic Policy Council, which is an advisory panel to the president, says that embryos are humans “in their earliest stage of development,” noting that “each of us originated as a single-cell embryo.” The report also states: “We do not have to think that human embryos are exactly the same in all ways as older humans to believe that they are entitled to respect and protection” … Gearing up for the Republican presidential nomination, moderate pro-lifer Senator John McCain (Arizona) has reached out to social conservative leader James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family. They had been feuding over McCain’s refusal to support a constitutional amendment protecting traditional marriage, as well as over embryonic stem cell research … The Food and Drug Administration has decided that meat and milk from cloned animals is safe to eat … The FDA is considering the first application for fetal stem cell research for a major brain disorder after ReNeuron, a British biotech firm, requested permission to conduct clinical trials using fetal stem cells to treat stroke victims … Lawrence B. Finer, director of domestic research at the Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, claims in a study published in the Public Health Reports that premarital sex in the United States has been “nearly universal” since 1954. Finer states that, “The majority of older teens and adults have already had sex before marriage.” Finer is using his conclusions to call for an end to abstinence-only sex education.
International
Hong Kong will no longer allow entry to pregnant women from mainland China unless they can prove they have a medical appointment. The number of births by mainland Chinese women has nearly doubled since 2003 to 19,538. Officials speculate that part of the reason for the increase is that many women are evading Beijing’s one-child policy …Louise Brown, 28, the world’s first “test-tube baby,” has given birth to Cameron John Mullinder.The Mail on Sunday reports Cameron was conceived naturally. In 1999, Brown’s younger sister, Natalie, also conceived through in-vitro fertilization, became the first “test-tube baby” to give birth … Jan. 11 marked the 40th anniversary of a public meeting in Caxton Hall, London, which launched the British pro-life group, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children …Writing in the Medical Post, Colleen Clements, an adjunct clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Rochester (New York), says the decision by theRoyal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in the United Kingdom to discuss the euthanasia of “severely disabled infants is an example of “the medical profession … taking baby steps” toward “incremental infanticide.” Clements says that under the guise of a neutral discussion, the RCOG is in fact pushing the envelope, softening support for euthanasia that will eventually be permitted in more and more cases … The ZurichSonnagszeitung reported that a 43-year-old woman suffered painfully, crying out in pain for four minutes, before falling into a coma for 38 minutes preceding her death after taking a fatal dose of poison at the Swiss Dignitas euthanasia clinic.
Ideas
Commenting on the trend of media stars such as Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, and Madonna, having or adopting children, Jay D. Homnick writes atThe American Spectator Online, “Ideas shift more quickly than behaviours and the national ethos has many entrenched barriers to change. So it is exciting to see celebrities and cultural leaders embracing a fresh eagerness to invite a new generation into our midst.”…Laura Penny is whipping up the idea of licensing parents. Writing in the Globe and Mail, the Halifax author says: “Should it be nature or the capacity to nurture that determines who gets to be a parent? You need a licence to run a hot-dog cart, but any jerk can whelp a litter of jerklings. Infertile couples – and gay ones, for that matter – must submit themselves to the scrutiny of a medical or legal bureaucracy in order to have a child, which is more than you can say for your average fecklessly fecund heterosexual.”
