NDP leader Jack Layton passed away at the age of 61 on August 22, a month after revealing that he had been diagnosed with a new, unnamed cancer after overcoming pancreatic cancer earlier in the year. Layton had been a supporter of abortion and special rights for gays his whole career. In 1986, as a Toronto city councillor, Layton pushed for benefits for homosexual employees of the city, saying that if they were not enacted, benefits for married, opposite couples should be ended. As leader of the federal NDP he supported special rights for transgendered people and including abortion as a part of the government’s maternal health initiative. He surprised some political observers by voting against a 2010 private member’s bill that sought to legalize euthanasia and physician assisted death. Campaign Life Coalition issued a statement following the news of Layton’s death, encouraging “supporters to remember him and his family in his prayers,” noting that the organization “never supported him because of his pro-abortion stance.” Still, they prayed “that God may have mercy on his soul.”
