Politics
Tuesday January 21, 2003
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Print- WESTON FOUNDATION TO GIVE CANADIAN FAMILIES SCHOOL CHOICE FUNDS
- HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS PUSHING FOR "MARRIAGE" IN CANADA AND U.S.
- MORGENTALER TO EXPAND MANITOBA ABORTION BRANCH
- ST. LOUIS ARCHBISHOP LEADS NEARLY 1000 IN MARCH AND PRAYER OUTSIDE ABORTUARY
- ADULT BONE MARROW CELLS CAN BECOME BRAIN TISSUE
- "EUROPEAN COUNTRIES FORCED TO FUND ABORTION THROUGH EU CONTRIBUTIONS"
- ARGENTINA SPENDS MILLIONS DISTRIBUTING FREE ABORTIFACIENTS AND CONDOMS
- CLONING DOC ANTINORI UNDER POLICE INVESTIGATION IN ITALY
- LIFESITE NEWSBYTES
WESTON FOUNDATION TO GIVE CANADIAN FAMILIES SCHOOL CHOICE FUNDS
Certain to give a big boost to growing school choice movement in Canada
TODAY'S HEADLINES
TORONTO, January 21, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The National Post reports today the W. Garfield Weston Foundation will announce this week its multi-million dollar Children First: School Choice Trust program. The program will cover part of the costs for lower income families to send their children to private schools. The startling new development is certain to give a big boost to the growing school choice movement in Canada.
Galen Weston, Canada's second wealthiest citizen, is president of the Weston charity but is not directly involved in the new education program. Administration of the program has been given over to the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute.
The Post reports that Claudia Hepburn, director of education at the Fraser Institute, said Canadian parents have limited choice because provincial governments only partially fund private schooling. She added "parents decide what their children eat and how much exercise they get. They should be able to decide how their child is educated."
The Children First program will begin in September and the foundation has set aside funding for at least three years. Garfield Mitchell, executive director of the Weston charity confirmed to the Post that the trust will issue millions of dollars to families who will have to pay the difference between the trust's contribution and the actual school tuition.
Frequent use of the term 'family' by the trust and its emphasis that it is helping families will be seen as a refreshing change by many. There has been growing distaste with many public educators' tendency to treat students as somehow autonomous and independent from their families, if not even in opposition to their parents' wishes for their education.
Opposition to the program from education bureaucrats is seen as inevitable. The Post says Doug Hart, a researcher with the left-wing Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, already dismissed the Weston plan as being part of "an ideological agenda".
School choice advocates view Hart's comment as bizarre, coming from a representative of an institution that has itself been very ideological. It's multi-billion dollar, taxpayer-funded education experiments have often been criticized for crippling the quality of education in Ontario schools over at least the past few decades.
See the National Post
http://www.nationalpost.com/national/story.html?id=%7BEDA11249-1D37-4A4F-901B-3B...
See the Children's Scholarship Fund (CSF) which has been named among the 100 best charities in America by Worth Magazine. The Weston program will likely emulate many aspects of the very successful CSF program.
http://www.scholarshipfund.org/index.asp
See yesterday's LifeSite report
CANADIAN NATIVES RECEIVE MOST GENEROUS EDUCATION VOUCHERS
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/jan/030120a.html
Back to TopHOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS PUSHING FOR "MARRIAGE" IN CANADA AND U.S.
Target St. Valentine's Day for "Marriage" Attempts
MONCTON, NB, January 21, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Canadian homosexual activists, who have coordinated their efforts to challenge marriage laws in the provinces of Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, are expanding their efforts to New Brunswick and even into the United States.
A homosexual male couple plan to go to Moncton City Hall on February 14, St. Valentines Day, to apply for a Marriage License. Typically, media are invited to attend the event and create an emotional picture of the rejection of a marriage licence. Other homosexual couples have been encouraged to come forward and simultaneously request marriage licences.
In related news, having been inspired by the Toronto Metropolitan Community Church which performed mock "weddings" for homosexual couples last year, Rev. Elder Dr. Troy Perry (Los Angeles), Founder and Moderator Metropolitan Community Churches has called for homosexual activists to engage in acts of civil disobedience. Perry "is calling for a North American Valentine's Day act of civil obedience to call attention to the unfairness of government prohibitions against same- sex marriage" reports a homosexual activist website.
See the homosexual activist website:
http://www.samesexmarriage.ca
MORGENTALER TO EXPAND MANITOBA ABORTION BRANCH
WINNIPEG, January 21, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Dr. Henry Morgentaler is expanding his profit-making abortion clinic in Manitoba, vowing to sue the province for refusing to cover his lucrative $500 per abortion "clinic fee," over and above the "doctor's fee" already funded by taxpayers.
Morgentaler's threat comes after a lengthy feud with the province (see previous LifeSite coverage, linked below). "It is incomprehensible that a minister of health, whose duty it is to protect the health of citizens, should be so insensitive to the suffering of women, and so delinquent in carrying out his duties," Morgentaler said. "It is hard to understand how a pro-choice NDP party has been manoeuvred into imposing suffering and victimization of women by a small anti-choice faction in its midst," he said.
Morgentaler, as usual, made no mention of the many tiny girls, and boys, whose lives he snuffs out each day.
(with files from Pro-Life E-News)
For local news coverage see:
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/
For previous LifeSite coverage see:
MANITOBA REBUFFS MORGENTALER
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/dec/02121706.html
ST. LOUIS ARCHBISHOP LEADS NEARLY 1000 IN MARCH AND PRAYER OUTSIDE ABORTUARY
ST. LOUIS, January 21, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Archbishop Justin Rigali of St. Louis celebrated a pro-life Mass Saturday with over 1,200 in attendance. Following the Mass, the archbishop led the faithful on a prayerful march from the Cathedral Basilica 16 blocks to the Planned Parenthood abortuary.
Archbishop Rigali asked the faithful to join him in praying for elected officials and others to join "the struggle to protect human life" and for God to "change hearts." The pro-lifers commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision also prayed for "the conversion of all those who participate in the abortion industry."
See the Post Dispatch coverage:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/20C1A49F221F1E1686256CB30...
ADULT BONE MARROW CELLS CAN BECOME BRAIN TISSUE
WASHINGTON, January 21, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Adult bone marrow cells can become new brain cells, according to research at the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke in Bethesda, Md. "This study shows that some kind of cell in bone marrow, most likely a stem cell, has the capacity to enter the brain and form neurons," says the head researcher, Dr. Eva Mezey of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a branch of the National Institutes of Health. The results appear in the January 20, 2003 online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Previous research has shown that donor bone marrow stem cells can migrate throughout the body in the bloodstream, differentiating into various cell types - but this work was carried out on animals. The current findings were the result of autopsy studies of brain cells from deceased patients who had received bone marrow transplants earlier in life.
Dr. Mezey told BBC News Online: "We have had trouble convincing some members of the scientific community that this could happen, and as I see it, accepting this idea is the first step towards accepting the suggestion that adult stem cells could some day be used to replace neural elements lost to neurodegenerative diseases, stroke, or trauma." She noted that current scientific enthusiasm remains focused on embryonic stem cells - despite results such as these.
For the press release from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke see:
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/news_and_events/pressrelease_bone_marrow_neurons.htm
"EUROPEAN COUNTRIES FORCED TO FUND ABORTION THROUGH EU CONTRIBUTIONS"
"deeply concerned" SPUC calls for urgent counteraction by European citizens
BRUSSELS, January 21, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Development Committee of the European Parliament adopted nearly unanimously today the Sandbaek Report on "Reproductive and sexual health and rights in developing countries". Due to the overwhelming support for the report, the text will be submitted to the Parliament's plenary session for voting without debate or amendment.
The report opens the possibility of EU funding of abortions from its developmental aid budget. The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has expressed disappointment and grave concern at the move.
John Smeaton, national director of SPUC, said: "On account of the fact that EU regulations take precedence over national law, all EU member states will now be obliged to fund abortions overseas through their EU contributions. This includes Ireland, which has a pro-life constitution, as well as the pro-life accession countries such as Malta and Poland when they become full EU members. We are deeply concerned by this development because abortion law is not within the competence of the European Union, but a pro-abortion agenda is being pushed through without proper democratic scrutiny or informed debate."
"The main author of the report, Danish MEP Ulla Sandbæk, told an Irish radio station in November that the new regulation would mean that abortions would be legally funded by the EU. We at SPUC will do all we can to alert people to this fact which, if it is allowed to stand, will mean that the EU will become one of the foremost promoters of a pro-abortion culture of death around the world."
"We are also urging all concerned individuals in EU countries to contact their MEPs urgently and ask them to vote against the regulation in its entirety when it comes before the full parliament next month. They should also contact their national governments to urge ministers to do all they can within the decision-making framework of the EU, particularly in the council of ministers, to amend this deplorable proposal."
See the Euro-Fam coverage at:
http://www.euro-fam.org/spip/article.php3?id_article=115
ARGENTINA SPENDS MILLIONS DISTRIBUTING FREE ABORTIFACIENTS AND CONDOMS
BUENOS AIRES, January 21, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The predominantly Catholic country of Argentina is spending $14 million (US) on distributing free abortifacient birth control and condoms. Health Minister Gines Gonzalez Garcia announced Monday that the nation's new Sexual and Reproductive Health Law calls for the free distribution of intrauterine devices, condoms and birth control pills.
Garcia also said a new sex education program will be instituted nationally in schools.
For years, Catholic doctors in the country have been attempting to amend an Argentinean law which has led to the situation. The law allows the Argentinean public access to drugs already authorized in other countries such as the United States.
See the Argentina news coverage (in Spanish):
http://www.yupimsn.com/salud/leer_noticias.cfm?newsid=228303
CLONING DOC ANTINORI UNDER POLICE INVESTIGATION IN ITALY
ROME, January 21, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - At the request of Health Minister Girolamo Sirchia, Italian police began investigating Dr. Severino Antinori who claims to be involved in human cloning experiments. Antinori has commenced a hunger strike to protest the investigation which he called an invasion of his "scientific freedom."
Antinori, who gained notoriety as a in vitro fertilization specialist impregnating a 65-year-old, announced last year that three women had been impregnated with cloned embryos. The first of which was to be born this month. However, Antinori refused to say he conducted the procedure, saying only that he had provided a "cultural and scientific contribution" to the scientists involved.
See the coverage in The Age:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/01/21/1042911379461.html
LIFESITE NEWSBYTES
TV 'HAS INFLUENCE ON ONE-YEAR-OLDS'
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/01/21/wtots21.xml&sSh...
BRITAIN IS A PAGAN SOCIETY, SAYS CARDINAL
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/01/20/ncard120.xml&sS...
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