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More Highlights from the Morgentaler Order of Canada Media Debate

By John Jalsevac

July 7, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The deluge of editorials, opinion pieces, letters, interviews and news reports in Canadian media has barely (if at all) slowed since it was announced on Canada Day, last Tuesday, July 1, that Henry Morgentaler, was to receive Canada's highest civic award - the Order of Canada.

Here are yet more highlights from just a few of the articles that have appeared in print media since we did our last such roundup last Friday.

How Morgentaler exposed the chasm between elites and the rest of Canada by David Warren - Columnist - The Ottawa Citizen
(http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/columnists/story.html?id...)

"Like many, many, many Canadians, I took the appointment of Henry Morgentaler to membership in the Order of Canada - proclaimed on 'Canada Day' - as a stick in the eye for everything we believe in. As a gratuitous insult to the memory of three million aborted babies.

"It was intended as that. The perpetrators of this hateful deed - presenting an abortionist as a model for 'humanism' and champion of women - knew perfectly well what they were doing. As I had learned even before the event, protocol had been breached in making the appointment. There was no consensus on the appointment committee; the chair, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, had failed to recuse herself. It was done deceitfully, after the Governor General's office had assured outraged callers last February that Morgentaler would not be on the list this year. And last weekend, as the rumour spread, a fresh round of outraged callers were being mocked - given the phone number of Campaign Life Coalition by the Rideau Hall switchboard.

"The announcement was then delayed - another irregularity - until after the Parliament Hill celebrations, to prevent a large pro-life demonstration from coalescing there. And, instead of denouncing the appointment, our cynical prime minister had 'talking points' distributed to his caucus before the fact.

"A very dark thing was done, as such things are always done - in a very dark way."

Morgentaler's shallow victory by Fr. Raymond de Souza - Columnist - The National Post
(http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id...)

"Awarding the Order of Canada to Henry Morgentaler was intended to confer…a sense of settled legitimacy to the publicly funded unlimited abortion license...

"Yet if Morgentaler's award was supposed to put the vice-regal seal of ordinariness upon unlimited abortion in Canada, his snowflake turned out to be unique indeed. It provoked widespread revulsion in some quarters, but more noteworthy, Rideau Hall conducted itself as if the matter left an embarrassing stench in the air.

"'For his commitment to increased health care options for women, his determined efforts to influence Canadian public policy and his leadership in humanist and civil liberties organizations.'

"That's the brief citation explaining what Morgentaler's qualifications are. Notice anything missing? The man's name is synonymous with abortion; one doesn't drop into a Morgentaler clinic for a bad back. He does one thing, and one thing only, and yet Rideau Hall could not bring itself to even mention it…

"Why not tell us what Morgentaler did? Even in his moment of triumph, the eyes need to be averted. That's the instructive lesson of the episode, not so much that Morgentaler was finally dragged across the threshold of Rideau Hall, but that it was so distasteful for all concerned…

"The Order of Canada was supposed to make Morgentaler and the hyper-extremism of the abortion party seem normal. The protest of opponents and the obfuscation of supporters have ensured that hasn't happened. Honouring Morgentaler has only served to remind us of something embarrassing we would prefer to forget."

Gutless leaders strike again by Fr. Thomas Rosica - Columnist - The Toronto Sun
(http://torontosun.com/Comment/2008/07/07/6086086-sun.html)

"When Canada honours someone who took the Hippocratic Oath and has wreaked such hurt, havoc, sorrow and grief, something is wrong with the Canadian government commission that grants medals and a Governor General who, claiming Catholic roots when convenient, shows herself to be spineless, politically correct and without respect for human life.

"During my six years as pastor of the Newman Centre Catholic Mission at the University of Toronto, I felt I was on the front lines of a war zone against life. One of the most difficult aspects of my pastoral ministry at Canada's largest university was dealing with many young women (and men) who had abortions…

"An initial sense of 'liberation' from termination of the unwanted pregnancy was almost always accompanied by deep guilt, trauma, anguish, nightmares for months, an inability to be around children, prevailing feelings of unworthiness, failed relationships, and sometimes a later inability to conceive…

"Those who experienced abortions and came to us at the Newman Centre were not fanatical Catholics but human beings who made bad choices, and had been deceived, crushed and terribly diminished. The Governor General was not there to console them.

"Dr. Morgentaler and his agents and disciples did not have to deal with these individuals. They merely duped them."

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