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EVES COMES OUT SWINGING AGAINST PARENTAL CHOICE IN EDUCATION TAX CREDIT

Slanders independent schools, implying they teach "hatred" and "intolerance"

TORONTO, December 18, 2001 (LSN.ca) - Ontario Tory Leadership contender Ernie Eves, slammed the lack of more restrictive conditions within the new Ontario independent schools tax credit program. Eves, the former provincial Finance Minister, blasted his leadership rival, current Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, for allowing the tax credit to be unhampered by the need to follow the Ontario state-mandated education curriculum. Eves descended so far in his animosity toward independent schools as to suggest that the lack of more control would fail to prevent the teaching of "hatred" in private schools.

"Are you in favour -- this is a hypothetical scenario -- are you in favour of a school that doesn't teach any basic curriculum and teaches hatred?" he said. "Would you be in favour of that?" The comments were viewed alarmingly by pro-family leaders, especially given Eves' staunch anti-life and anti-family background. "This is the language of abortion and homosexual activist bullies who suggest that anything which might not indoctrinate children with their ideological 'choices' is 'hateful' and 'intolerant'," said Jim Hughes of Campaign Life Coalition. The Canadian Press interpreted Eves' comments to mean "Eves suggested there would be nothing in place to stop the spread of intolerance." The Toronto Sun also reported that the plan's lax rules would "overlook intolerance." The media and Eves obviously view the growth of independent schools as a serious threat to their liberal agenda rather than the provision of academic excellence and genuine family choice in education.

The only other comments on record which have expressed similar concerns about the tax credit were made by Toronto lawyer Clayton Ruby, best known as the lawyer of choice for abortionists and of the pro-abortion movement. At a press conference against the tuition tax credit, Ruby was quoted by the Globe and Mail as saying, "What the public school system does that is irreplaceable is teach people tolerance." Hughes commented, "The abortion proponents are apparently afraid of losing the social liberal monopoly control of public education and the formation of the minds of all of Ontario's children."

Flaherty said the new tax credit program enables parents themselves to decide what schooling is best for their children while requiring independent schools to provide parents with academic descriptions and credentials and to meet a few other conditions regarding total instruction time and a criminal record check of teachers.

See the Canadian Press and Toronto Sun coverage:
http://www.canoe.ca/NationalTicker/CANOE-wire.Ont-Private-Schools.html
http://www.canoe.ca/TorontoNews/ts.ts-12-18-0014.html

See related LifeSite coverage on Ruby's comments:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/may/01052502.html

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LAWYERS READY TO PRACTICE AT INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT AS OPENING NEARS

PARIS, December 18, 2001 (LSN.ca) - Lawyers' associations from all over the world met in Paris December 6 and 7 to create an international criminal lawyers' association for the International Criminal Court. Canadian Liberal MP Irwin Cotler announced the meeting in Parliament noting that the Canadian government co-sponsored the event.

The conference, organized by the International Criminal Defence Attorneys Association - with headquarters in Montreal, was expected to bring together over 300 experts from the bar associations of 60 countries. The aim of the meeting was to generate a pool of lawyers to provide of legal counsel to both individuals accused and the victims of 'crimes' within the court's jurisdiction. Cotler said, "Indeed the conference dramatizes just how close we are to having the ICC." He also noted that the Rome statute "received the 47th of the 60 ratifications needed to create the court just last week."

Once 60 countries have ratified the treaty the ICC will assume universal jurisdiction even over countries that have not signed on to the agreement. Explanatory material on the ICC released by the Canadian government during its hasty passage of ICC ratification stated: "It would not be a defence that an offence was committed in obedience to the law in force at the time and in the place of its commission." Canadian delegations to the UN have for years been consistently among the most aggressive in attempting to use the world body's agencies, including the ICC, to override national sovereignty and force radical social change on the world's nations.

(House of Commons Hansard - Dec. 5, 2001)

For more on the pro-life concerns with the ICC see:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/oct/01100201.html

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CANADIAN PHYSICIANS FOR LIFE ON GOV'T APPROVAL OF EMBRYO RESEARCH

Press Release - "Government Approval To Destroy Human Embryos Unacceptable"

VANCOUVER, BC, December 18, 2001 (LSN.ca) - Canadian Physicians for Life applauds the Minister of Health for proposing legislation on new medical technologies in Canada. The restrictions planned are long overdue.

While the new law correctly rejects intentional embryo creation for experimentation, it approves of destructive experimentation on embryos originally created as the children of infertile parents. It seems ethically inconsistent that the permissibility of experimentation up to 14 days on any one embryo relies on it not having been created for that purpose. If there is something wrong with a proposed action, surely it cannot be justified by recalling that one initially meant to do something else.

Treating a human embryo in this way is a declaration that it is not a good in and of itself, but that it has actually to be destroyed to yield good, moreover that its destruction must proceed while it is healthy and viable because its continued existence is not so useful to others as its destruction.

An arbitrary 14 day age limit is proposed to restrain this philosophy from being applied to older human beings. There is no logical reason or historic precedent why this restraint should be expected to hold, even if it were built on firmer foundations. No distinct biological marker supports the creation of a 14-day limit for permitting the destruction of a unique human being. The 14-day rule is capricious and unscientific.

The Canadian scientific community has limitless fields of exploration open to it which do not require the breach of this particular bulwark of principle. Such ethical firewalls are much easier to maintain than to rebuild in a crisis, and it would seem prudent and wise to expect this new technology to provide us with unforeseeable crises.

We recommend that all research on human embryos as well as any treatment that is not for their benefit be prohibited and not simply regulated as proposed. We have clearly set out our position in April 2001, when comment was invited by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The request for public guidance with the embryo destruction issue has satisfied the etiquette of consultation, leaving the question of whether Canadian scientific restraint with human embryos will continue to reflect technical limits in preponderance to ethical ones.

Our position paper can be viewed at http://www.physiciansforlife.ca

Will Johnston, MD, President - Vancouver, BC

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CHINA ALLOWS HUMAN CLONING FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES

BEIJING, December 18, 2001 (LSN.ca) - Communist China has joined Britain in its notorious allowance of human cloning. While both countries say they will not allow reproductive cloning, the result of the legislation would thus mandate the death of the human embryos created by cloning.

Mercury News reports that in China restrictions such as banning destructive research on embryos and presumably 'therapeutic' cloning are not being contemplated. Yanguan Wang, an ethicist who is helping to draft new research guidelines from the Ministry of Health said that the government may choose not to fund certain controversial research but it will not prohibit it.

See the Mercury News coverage at:
http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/depth/china121801.htm

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UNFPA ATTEMPTS WHITEWASH OF FORCED ABORTION IN CHINA

WASHINGTON, December 18, 2001 (LSN.ca) - A presentation to the US Congress on the complicity of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in coercive family planning programs in China has US lawmakers reconsidering funding for the organization. The controversy over UNFPA funding came to a head last month when the entire $15-plus billion Foreign Aid bill stalled in conference committee. It will likely not be resolved before the end of the year. The foreign operations appropriation (HR 2506) currently includes $37.5 million for the UNFPA.

In September, a Population Research Institute (PRI)-led investigation of UNFPA operations in China revealed that UNFPA supports China's one-child policy of coercive abortion and sterilization. At a hearing of the House Committee on International Relations, PRI presented first-hand evidence of video-taped testimonies obtained in China of victims of forced abortion and sterilization in a UNFPA county program. In addition, PRI's investigative team obtained photos showing the destruction of homes and properties by family planning officials armed with jackhammers as punishment for non-compliance with China's one-child policy.

In order to secure their funding, UNFPA's Executive Director, Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, has sent a letter to US Secretary of State Colin Powell and to Members of Congress attacking PRI's investigation in China. Attached to the letter is a report on UNFPA's own subsequent in-house investigation of China's family planning program, which that agency claims clears it of any wrongdoing. PRI obtained a copy of the UNFPA letter and 'mission report'.

PRI commented on the UNFPA mission report saying, it "presents no credible evidence to support its claim that voluntarism exists in its country program in Sihui, or anywhere else in China. The report simply repeats assertions made by Chinese officials that coercion has been eliminated, and targets and quotas lifted, in Sihui county. The Chinese officials who make these assertions have every reason to put the best face on the family planning programs that they supervise, especially when they come under scrutiny. They are not unbiased observers, but interested parties."

From information contained in the UNFPA report, PRI reveals that "Of the five days total that the UNFPA delegation spent in China, over half was spent in Beijing, in meetings, banquets and barbecues with Chinese officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the State Family Planning Commission. During half-day visits to Sihui county, Guangdong Province, and Qianjiang, the delegation was accompanied by Chinese officials from the national, provincial, prefectural, municipal and county governments. They went on guided tours of several family planning clinics, and spent only 30-minutes on 'household visits.' Faced with a phalanx of officials, no villager is going to utter the slightest criticism of family planning policies, or any other government policy for that matter. The risk of doing so would be too great."

PRI concludes, "In the absence of unsupervised contact with ordinary Chinese (of the kind enjoyed by PRI's own investigators in China), it would be impossible for the UNFPA delegation to accurately assess the state of the family planning policy in Sihui county or anywhere else in China."

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US NEWS ROUNDUP

NEW JERSEY SENATE APPROVES ABSTINENCE IS BEST BILL
After a 15-year battle, the New Jersey Senate voted to require public school teachers to stress abstinence "as the only completely reliable means" of preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/jersey/ledger/1556144.html

JUDGE ISSUES TEMPORARY ORDER ALLOWING PRO-LIFER TO DISPLAY SIGN
Thomas More Law Center has won the first round of a pro-life lawsuit in getting a judge to sign an an order temporarily restraining Michigan's Attorney General Jennifer Granholm and several other state law enforcement agents from using a state statute to prevent Ann Norton, a pro-life activist, from displaying a sign in front of a Kalamazoo, Michigan Planned Parenthood facility depicting the image of an aborted child.
http://www.thomasmore.org/index.cfm?location=5&subsectionid=1&PageID=1&release=8...

CALIFORNIA LAWMAKERS ARE PREPARING A BILL FOR VERMONT-STYLE HOMOSEXUAL UNIONS
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25700

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