Spring, in December, is unthinkable. Nature is a husk of faded flowers and fallen fruit: its breezes have become blizzards, its streams have all stopped. And yet we know that there is a term to the world’s cold fury, a limit past which its tempests may not pass. The endless cycle of seasons is a permanent lesson in transience, a lesson so [...]
The Washington Post reports on the search for good genes that is helping the assisted reproduction business. Some stats about the state of the industry: “The multibillion-dollar fertility industry is booming, and experimenting with business models that are changing the American family in new and unpredictable ways. Would-be parents seeking donor eggs and sperm can pick and choose from long checklists of physical and [...]
This cartoon was originally published in The Interim September 1994. When a half dozen Members of Provincial Parliament sat and (presumably) listened to the dozen and a half presenters on the anti-free speech bubble zones before the standing committee on general government on Oct. 19, they left the impression of merely going through the motions of listening to experts and [...]
There was a time when many Progressive Conservatives and Republicans supported so-called abortion rights and many Liberals, NDP, and Democrats were pro-life. (The joke used to be that all those right-wing politicians needed abortion to be legal so they could cover up their mistresses’ pregnancies.) The early pages of The Interim featured advertisements for both Liberals for Life and Tories for Life. [...]
In July, 1776, the Second Continental Congress made its famous Declaration of Independence, announcing, with vehemence and fanfare, a new arrival “among the powers of the earth” with the dissolution of “the political bands” that had connected the 13 Colonies to Britain – the original Brexit. Nearly a century later, another nation joined the powers of the earth when, by an act [...]
It’s probably no coincidence that the status of fathers has declined in proportion to the overall depreciation in family life, morality and culture during the last few decades. Much has been written in recent years about the negative portrayal of fathers in the news media and in the entertainment world. Indeed, the incompetent father has become something of an icon in North [...]
Former MP Tom Wappel often warns pro-lifers that if they don’t show up to candidate nominations, delegate selection meetings, and to vote their principles on election day, we are surrendering our political decision-making to those who do show up; it is effectively unilateral disarmament. Numerous pro-life and pro-family groups urged their members and supporters to purchase a Conservative Party membership because there [...]
Grieving families find similar points of solace and sorrow. On the one hand, the memory of the departed becomes, to those who remain behind, an invaluable treasure. Indeed, a loss will often reveal the wide network of connections in which the deceased was enmeshed. Such bittersweet discoveries – of all the lives that were touched by the life which is ended – [...]
When Norma McCorvey -- the “Roe” of the eponymous Supreme Court decision – died last month, many obituaries portrayed her as a passive pawn. Focusing on the difference between the mythic Roe and real-life McCorvey, remembrances like the one in the New York Times found occasion to wax philosophical about the distance between one person’s life and the forces of history. Such [...]
In recent years, so-called safe spaces have popped up on university campuses in both the United States and Canada. From designated rooms with puppies and pillows for people who need a retreat from the pressures of the real world of cloistered academia to bans on certain points of view in student common areas and even classrooms, the idea that young people should [...]
The Conservative leadership race that will be decided in May 2017 has one declared pro-lifer, MP Brad Trost (Saskatoon-University), and another considering throwing his hat into the ring, former MP Pierre Lemieux (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell). Campaign Life Coalition rates them as both pro-life. We thought there would be a third pro-lifer joining them in the race. Alas, we are profoundly disappointed with Andrew Scheer’s [...]
Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown’s flip-flop on sex-ed may have been a cynical political ploy, but pro-life and pro-family Canadians must resist cynicism about politics. It is true that many politicians are self-serving and opportunistic, including sometimes our friends and allies. It is our job in the pro-life movement to keep their resolve, to have courage in the face of partisan [...]
Our first reaction to the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision striking down part of the Criminal Code’s prohibition on bestiality was incredulousness: the newspapers and broadcasters were playing a joke on readers and viewers. Sadly, they were not. On June 9, all but one of the wise jurists on the Supreme Court decided that a ban on bestiality that did not involve [...]
There was cause for both celebration and disappointment at the Conservative convention last month in Vancouver when approximately 2500 party members gathered to debate policy for the party as it prepares for the 2019 federal election. There were victories in both the breakout sessions and the plenary meeting: a proposal to support euthanasia was unmercifully killed in the policy session and proposals [...]
The Canadian Association of Retired Persons, Canada’s largest organization for seniors, dismissed Susan Eng, executive vice-president of advocacy at CARP Canada for the past eight years, apparently because she was “insubordinate,” but more likely because she did not toe the now officially pro-euthanasia position of the organization. CARP is run by media magnate Moses Znaimer, a founding patron of Dying with Dignity [...]