Articles for Month: December 1997

KINGSTON, Ont., De c 23 (LSN)—Ontario will pay the bill for a lawyer for Canada’s most infamous sex killer, Paul Bernardo. The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled Bernardo’s appeal is so complicated that justice requires a lawyer be provided at public expense, which could cost $35,000. Interestingly, when the Ontario government took pro-lifers to court under the Rae government, to try to quash the pro-life movement in the province, it was not deemed unjust to allow the 18 innocent pro-life leaders to be forced to pay the legal fees for their own defenses.

GENEVA, Dec 23 (LSN)—On Monday, the General Assembly of the UN discussedthe withholding of payments of “dues” by the US. The European Union chastised the US for daring to arrest its payment of funds to the world body. Speaking on behalf of the EU, Luxembourg’s Ambassador Jean-Louis Wolzfeld told the assembly, “Unilateral reductions cannot be accepted.” The US traditionally has funded 25% of the total UN budget

TORONTO, Dec 23 (LSN)—On Friday, the government-appointed Education Improvement Commission reviled the idea of setting up charter school opportunities in Ontario. A number of Conservative members in the Ontario government supported the notion of allowing groups of parents to obtain a charter to open a publicly funded school more or less independent from school boards. Commission co-chair Dave Cooke argued against the proposal by pointing to the “strength” of our current system, where “all 11.5 million people in this province believe they have a stake in public education.” Charter schools would have more freedom to choose how to operate and […]

TORONTO, Dec 23 (LSN) – Maurice Genereux, a doctor who specializes in AIDS, has become the first Canadian physician convicted of assisting a suicide. Genereux pleaded guilty to two counts of assisting suicide by administering lethal doses of sleeping pills to two HIV-positive men. On Monday, Genereux was released on bail

PORTLAND, Ore., Dec 22 (LSN) – Archbishop John Vlazny, Oregon’s new Archbishop took the occasion of his installation as the 10th leader of the Archdiocese of Portland, to praise Catholic’s for their efforts to stop the law allowing doctor-assisted suicide in the state. The archbishop, who previously served as head of the Winona, Minn., diocese, preached in his homily about the Church’s strong stand against Oregon’s first-in-the-nation law allowing doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to terminally ill patients. Oregon voters reaffirmed their support for the suicide law last month, despite a campaign by Catholics and other groups to persuade voters […]

NEW YORK, Dec 22 (LSN) – The medical director at Planned Parenthood in Houston, Dr. Jerry Edwards, has devised a technique that enables abortionists to kill babies in their early stages of development. Planned Parenthood claims that mothers will be able to abort their children eight to 10 days after conception. The foremost abortion provider, Planned Parenthood proudly announced that the new procedure was available at 23 of its abortion mills. The new technique uses a hand-held syringe instead of a vacuum pump to kill the baby. Advances in pregnancy tests, are able to detect a growing baby within a […]

SASKATOON, Dec 22 (LSN) – Robert Latimer, convicted of gassing his 12-year-old daughter Tracy, is free on a $10,000 recognizance bail. Latimer has decided to appeal the two-year sentence he received for the killing. Mark Brayford, Latimer’s lawyer, charged that Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Ted Noble “erred in law in not charging the jury that they could find that Robert Latimer had the legal right to decide to commit suicide for his daughter by virtue of he and his wife being her surrogate decision makers.”“The sentence imposed by the learned trial justice is greater than is warranted or necessary, […]

On Dec. 16, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of B.C. responded to a news media sponsored poll released Dec.15 indicating Canadian support for euthanasia. “Canadians don’t want to terminate the sick and disabled, they want to care for them”, said EPC co-chairman Dr. Will Johnston. “The poll’s claim that Canadians overwhelmingly support euthanasia is just not true”, he said, citing the conclusive findings of EPC’s own poll conducted in June of this year. “The Pollara poll findings are inaccurate because they don’t define 'doctor-assisted suicide.’ Our results show many people still don’t understand terms like euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide. They think […]

On December 19, Judge H.J. McGivern of the BC Provincial Court rejected a challenge of the NDP government’s “bubble zone” law brought forward by prominent Nelson pro-lifer Jim Demers. Mr Demers sought to have preborn children included in the right-to-life guarantee of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and to overturn the Access to Abortion Services Act, which prohibits free speech around abortion centres in BC. He spent five days presenting an impressive array of arguments for the humanity of the preborn child, and for the right to life of preborn children according to international law. Judge McGivern ignored all […]

SYDNEY, Australia, Dec 19 (LSN) – Australia’s Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission (HREOC) ruled Thursday that the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney illegally discriminated against a lesbian teacher when it refused to certify her as a teacher in Catholic schools. Homosexual activist Jacqui Griffin brought the case forward claiming that the Catholic Education Office had refused her application for certification in 1993. The refusal was prompted by Griffin's public profile as co-founder of the Gay and Lesbian Teachers and Students Association. Human Rights Commissioner Chris Sidoti ruled that “the practice complained of constitutes discrimination under the Human Rights and Equal […]