For those of us living in Ontario and New Brunswick, the most important political concern at this time should be the upcoming provincial elections and a desire to gain the knowledge we need to prudently exercise our civic responsibility. We should also be trying to influence the way other people vote.Yeah, I know that the two topics you don’t discuss in polite company are religion and politics. The problem, though, is that polite people in Canada also kill babies. It’s probably safe to say, therefore, that politeness, while having its place, is largely overrated in some circles.
A Christian professor who has greatly influenced my thinking said that his students sometimes ask him if they should be involved in politics. His answer, he said, is this: “Are you a Christian?”
Being a Christian doesn’t mean you have to run for office, but it does mean that ambivalence towards political issues is not a moral option. Christianity is a worldview, not simply an excuse to get out of bed on Sunday or a vehicle for making you feel good. So, let’s get out there and make a difference. Anyway, I’m supposed to use this column to talk about federal issues, so let me do that.
New repro-tech bill planned
After two and a half years, the federal government has finally announced that it plans to introduce legislation governing reproductive technologies. The Liberal government introduced a bill to regulate reproductive technologies (C-47) in June 1996, during their last term in office. Pro-lifers have been baffled as to why it has taken them so long to prepare the law for re-introduction during the current parliament. It is unlikely that the reason was a desire to make the bill stronger.
The last bill was ethically convoluted. In an apparent attempt to pacify a variety of interests, it was filled with moral contradictions. In one place, for example, it allowed for experimentation on babies during the first 14 days of their existence. Elsewhere it talked about the inherent value that exists in preborn life that demands an attitude of respect when dealing with embryos.
If the current bill is similar in substance, legislation talking about the respect deserved by embryos is going to be thrust into the midst of a “debate” in Alberta and around the country over whether or not infanticide is okay. Maybe it’s just me, but there seems to be something distinctly disrespectful about throwing a vulnerable crying baby into a metal pan to starve to death.
When nurses who are nutty enough to adhere to a faith system that condemns murder – can you imagine something so ridiculous! – object to being part of this infanticide scheme, they are told that this option is not available to them. Let’s hope that the situation at Foothills leads to the speedy passage of Reform MP Maurice Vellacott’s “conscience clause” bill (C-461). Actually, I’m torn on this issue. It may be better, if it were possible, for all consistently ethical nurses (that is, those who don’t kill) to abandon the current system and help set up a parallel health system in Canada. It would take no time at all, I suspect, for Canadians of all stripes to likewise abandon Canada’s experimentation with Frankenstein medicine in favour of hospitals where they don’t have to fear whether or not they will wake up the next morning.
Media coverage of May 14
Before I close off this column, I wanted to touch on the media coverage of the recent March for Life rally in Ottawa. Overall the coverage was very lame, as one would expect. I, however, believe that Dave Rinn of CTVdeserves to be commended for the fairness of his 11:00 p.m. report on May 14.
What was particularly interesting was the complete lack of coverage in the print media. I looked through the Saturday issue of the Ottawa Citizenand did not see a single mention of the March for Life. I was told that theNational Post and the Globe and Mail were also silent. Ladies and gentlemen, the government does not have to buy out our newspapers to make them agents of the state when, of their own accord, they are going to engage in such egregious examples of self-censorship.
