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Order of Canada Advisory Committee Member Also Strong Embryonic Stem-Cell Research Advocate

By Hilary White

OTTAWA, July 23, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The advisory council for the Order of Canada has been heavily criticised in recent weeks for its pro-abortion and far-left bias, especially since the decision to award the "centrepiece of Canada's honours system" to Canada's most notorious abortionist, Dr. Henry Morgentaler. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Beverley McLachlin, who heads the advisory council, is under severe criticism for having "brutishly" honoured Morgentaler by bulldozing the nomination through the advisory committee at the last minute.

Another member of the advisory council with connections to a major section of the anti-life movement is Yvan Guindon, the Director of the Bio-Organic Chemistry Laboratory at the Institut de Recherches Cliniques de Montréal (IRCM), who is also a member of the board of directors of the Stem Cell Network - the government-funded research body that led the efforts to allow the creation and use of human embryos for research.

Guindon is a member of the Department of Chemistry at McGill University and a member of the Royal Society of Canada. He is also a member of the Order of Canada.

The Stem Cell Network was a major driving force behind the passage of Canada's Assisted Human Reproductive Technologies bill that allows the creation of living human beings at the embryonic stage to be used for experimental research.

Nowhere does the Stem Cell Network's ethics policy acknowledge the existence of any ethical objection to using living human beings at the embryonic stage for experimental research.

Rather, the Network states bluntly, "It is ethically acceptable to derive and use HESC lines from either frozen or non-frozen human embryos for research which aims to: develop cell replacement therapies, further other medical uses, treat human diseases, and prevent suffering."

Joseph Quesnel, writing in the Winnipeg Sun, said this week that the advisory council of the Order of Canada reads like a "who's who" of the Canadian left. Quesnel said that now that the "dust has settled" the focus of attention should be on the make-up of the Order's advisory council, which, as an independent body, may be free of "government entanglements" but cannot be considered without bias.

"While some appointments involve controversy, it is evident that the controversy skews one way... The advisory council needs some new blood or some shakeup," he wrote. 

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/jun/04061004.html

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