Articles for Month: March 1998

OTTAWA, Mar 24 (LSN) – The Canadian Human Rights Commission tabled its 1997 annual report today calling for more privileges for homosexuals. The report claimed that the country’s human rights laws offer little more protection than they did 20 years ago, and said that “gays and lesbians are still targets of discrimination.”  This despite the fact that homosexuals have been granted special status in the Canadian Human Rights Act by having the term “sexual orientation” included as an area of special protection. Moreover, recent Canadian court decisions have permitted homosexual couples to adopt children, to push for the immigration of […]

SAN FRANCISCO Mar 24 (LSN)  The California Supreme Court ruled on Monday that The Boy Scouts of America were not bound by the California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act since they were not a business, and thus were not obliged to accept Timothy Curran, a self-proclaimed practicing homosexual, as an assistant scoutmaster. In a unanimous decision, the court said the Scouts are not a business and therefore are free, like any private club, to set their own membership policies.  The Supreme Court ruling overturns the March 2 decision by a New Jersey appeals court judge which said the scouts were guilty […]

KINGSTON, N.Y., Mar 24 (LSN)  The New York Times reported today on the dismissal last Thursday of Dr David Mesches from his post as chairman of the department of family medicine at Catholic –  affiliated New York Medical College. Dr Mesches had agreed in January to lease space in his medical offices for an abortuary.  Mesches made his anti-life views public in an interview with a local newspaper, telling reporters abortion is “the law of the land” and adding that leasing the facility for an abortion mill was “the right thing to do.” Ellen Carr, a spokeswoman for the college, […]

LANSING, Mich., Mar 24 (LSN)  On Monday, Right to Life Michigan (RLM) issued a press release praising Michigan’s Supreme Court for upholding a lower court decision in favour of a state right-to-know law. That lower court held that a trial court had erred in striking down the law in 1997. The ruling puts women in Michigan one step closer to having the right to know the basics when they undergo a “medical procedure” such as abortion.  RLM President Barbara A. Listing said, “After an abortion, many women spend their entire lives in regret, wishing someone had given them just a […]

NEW YORK, Mar 23 (LSN)  The 42nd Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women finalized a work plan two weeks ago for a special session of the UN’s General Assembly in 2000 to review the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women. According to the The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (CFHRI), an advocate for family and human rights at the UN, the work plan on reviewing the implementation of the Beijing document contained pro-abortion language. Pro-lifers managed, however, to remove language condemning “forced pregnancy,” which is understood by all to mean laws against abortion.

BUDAPEST, Mar 23 (LSN)  Hungarian provincial court judge Eva Molnar, has attempted to save the life of a preborn child by ruling that a 13-year-old girl could not go ahead with a “planned infanticide.” The Alfa Federation, a local pro-life group, was alerted to the case by a priest,  who offered to care for the child after its birth. The group appealed to the judge in the case for permission to name a guardian to represent the preborn child in court.  On Friday in Baja,  a small town in a rural southern Hungary, Judge Molnar ruled that “The fetus’s right […]

LONDON, Mar 23 (LSN)  England’s Sunday Times reported yesterday that new research by Stephen Evans, a psychologist from Keele University, demonstrates that children in the womb can hear and remember sounds as early as 20 weeks after conception. Evans was able to show that three weeks after birth babies could recognize an obscure song played at the 20th week of development by examining kicking patterns.  Previously it had been believed that fetal learning started at 24 weeks – the legal limit on abortion in Britain. Nearly 170,000 terminations take place in the country each year. In 1996,  2,192 of these […]

WASHINGTON, Mar 23 (LSN)  In a severe blow to the U.S. pro-life movement, the U.S. Supreme Court recently rejected the appeal of a lower court decision that struck down Ohio’s ban on partial-birth abortion. Three of the seven justices, however, dissented from the controversial decision. Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice Clarence Thomas, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote, “Our failure to review the decision below may cast unnecessary doubt on the validity of other state statutes (restricting abortion).”  A federal judge overturned Ohio’s 1995 law banning partial-birth abortion, saying it was unconstitutional. A federal appeals court agreed with that ruling, and […]

LOS ANGELES, Mar 23 (LSN)  On Saturday, ABC Television’s national news bulletin showed a film of a man committing suicide by drinking a poisonous concoction containing cyanide. The film’s showing in Spain earlier this year sparked vehement protest from Catholic Church officials in the country. Ramon Sampedro, a quadriplegic for 29 years after a diving accident,  made his death an advertisement for legalizing euthanasia.  The ABC segement entitled, “Whose Life Is It Anyway?,” translated Sampedro’s words before drinking the poison: “At last I will be free.” Although the segment allowed viewers to watch Sampedro drink the poison, the disastrous effects […]

OTTAWA, Mar 23 (LSN)  At their biennial policy convention last weekend, the federal Liberal party approved a resolution to grant homosexual couples the same employment benefits as heterosexual married couples. Although debate was heated and the effect on the party seemed divisive, the resolution is now official party policy. Such resolutions are not binding on the government