CLC launches pro-life petition
TORONTO – Campaign Life Coalition launched a petition calling for the decriminalization of abortion. It reads, in part: “Whereas it has been 40 years since May 14, 1969 when Parliament changed the law to permit abortion and since January 28, 1988 Canada has had no law to protect the lives of unborn children. Therefore, your petitioners call upon Parliament to pass legislation for the protection of human life from the time of conception (fertilization) until natural death.” The petition can be accessed at www.campaignlifecoalition.org or obtained by calling (416) 204-9749.
CLC national organizer Mary Ellen Douglas told The Interim, “It is extremely important to have a law that protects all human life” and that the petitions will be used to bring the issue before Parliament before the May 14 anniversary of the passing of the Omnibus Bill. She urges people to get 25 signatures on the petition quickly and return them to CLC promptly so the organization can forward them to pro-life MPs.
Development and Peace alleged to support pro-abortion groups
TORONTO – LifeSiteNews.com revealed that the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, the official international development organization of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, gave $170,000 to five groups in Mexico that promote abortion. Later, the website of the National Catholic Register in the United States reported that D&P also supported a pro-abortion group in Bolivia. LifeSite’s report linked to the five groups’ websites which demonstrated their abortion advocacy.
Without denying the report, D&P executive director Michael Casey called the LifeSite expose “dangerously irresponsible and slanderous,” that intended “to deliberately misinterpret the social justice initiatives of our southern partners in this light.” Gilio Brunelli, director of international programs for D&P, told Lifesite that his organization does not have the resources or mandate to investigate all the activities in which their developing world partners participate. He said it was not their role to “pass judgment” on partner organizations and that there is no D&P policy prohibiting groups that support abortion from receiving funding. He was adamant that D&P funds were earmarked for specific poverty relief projects and that they did not go to promote abortion.
Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins sent a letter to all pastors of the archdiocese calling the allegations “serious” and vowed to investigate the situation, indicating that D&P funding through ShareLife was in jeopardy: “I will not allow any money raised in the Archdiocese of Toronto to be used for pro-abortion activities or organizations.”
Gibbons’s court dates set
TORONTO – Trial and appeal dates have been set for pro-life demonstrator Linda Gibbons following her most recent arrest outside a downtown Toronto abortion site. Her trial on charges of disobeying a court order and mischief to property is to be held on Wednesday, April 29 at 10 a.m. in Room 504 of the Ontario Court of Justice at College Park, Yonge and College Streets in Toronto. In its continuing tactic of legal game-playing, the Crown has substituted the first charge in place of the original one of obstructing a peace officer. A witness to the incident said there was no way any of Gibbons’s actions constituted mischief to property and suggested it was a concocted charge.
There will also be an appeal heard, at the behest of the Crown, of the quashing of a previous charge of disobeying a court that had been laid against Gibbons last year. It will take place on Thursday, June 4 at 10 a.m. in the Civil Superior Court of Justice at 361 University Ave. in Toronto. The judge in that case ruled that Gibbons could not be convicted of a criminal charge because the court injunction under which she was arrested had been issued by a civil court.
Ontario’s legal system and Toronto police have been constantly hounding Gibbons over a 15-year period, jailing her for a cumulative total of years, ever since a “temporary” court injunction was issued in 1994 establishing a “bubble zone” around certain Toronto abortion sites. Her actions habitually consist of passive conduct such as pacing back and forth in front of the abortion sites, praying, handing out literature and speaking to abortion-minded mothers.
