Articles for Month: March 2008

Second hour of debate on Canadian unborn victims of crime bill

By Thaddeus M. Baklinski BILLINGS, March 4, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a statement issued last week, Montana bishops Michael W. Warfel and George Leo Thomas said the Montana Catholic Conference will not endorse Constitutional Initiative 100 (the Montana Personhood Amendment) that would establish conception as the beginning of life by placing a personhood amendment on the state’s 2008 ballot. Moe Wosepka, executive director of the Montana Catholic Conference said that although “the bishops agonized over this decision for several months, and did not take this decision lightly,” they determined that even if voters approved it, the ballot initiative would be […]

By John Connolly OLATHE, Kansas, March 4, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Kansas grand jury convened to investigate Planned Parenthood for illegal activities disbanded on Monday without issuing any indictments. The grand jury was seated on December 10, and in January issued a subpoena for medical records of 16 women who obtained abortions at the Planned Parenthood clinic in 2003. Planned Parenthood filed a motion to block the subpoena, a motion that Judge Kevin Moriarty upheld throughout the sparse investigation. On Monday, the grand jury unanimously withdrew the only subpoena it had issued for the investigation. The grand jury was empanelled […]

New US Ambassador Glendon expected to promote the cause of life and marriage

By Hilary White   CHICAGO, March 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Abortion advocates in Illinois are pleased that the US District Court for the Northern District Illinois has ruled that the state’s Parental Notification Act, first passed in 1985, will continue to not be enforced.   A 1996 court order halted the law saying that there were insufficiently clear rules regarding appeals for the notification. Courts have since then repeatedly prevented its being enforced. In 2006, however, the Illinois Supreme Court issued clarified rules for notification of parents, but on Friday, U.S. District Judge David H. Coar called these rules “contradictory […]

52nd Commission on the Status of Women

Re: There is a Way to Defeat the Enemies of Life  https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/feb/08022208.html   Dear Editor,   Thanks for the excellent challenge by Steve Jalsevac.  He’s right on two fronts.  Certainly in the need to combat the pro-death spokespeople who have moved on to other more sinister issues, but also on the pro-life front too.  There has been a dearth of solid new thinking for a long time.  After a while we pro-lifers also get tired of hearing all the same old arguments.   So it is refreshing to think that maybe we will start to say some new and relevant […]

By Hilary White   LONDON, March 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Three quarters of teachers polled by a quasi-official teachers’ professional journal said they think sex education should be compulsory, with parents losing their right to pull their children from the classes, the Daily Telegraph reports. The Times Educational Supplement (TES) poll found that more than 60 per cent of primary teachers and 35 per cent of secondary teachers said lessons should start as young as nine. A further quarter of primary staff said classes should begin at seven.   Gregory Carlin, spokesman for the Irish Anti-Trafficking Coalition, a group that […]

By John Jalsevac   OTTAWA, March 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Yesterday’s Ottawa Citizen featured a two page spread detailing the moving experiences of three separate families with Down Syndrome children.   In the articles three sets of parents candidly speak of their struggles to care for children with special needs, their deep appreciation for the beauty and the enrichment that their children have brought to their lives, and of Canada’s pervasive anti-disability mindset and the pressure to abort those with disabilities.   One father, Michael Shaw, told the Citizen that it is thanks only to the negligence of a doctor […]

By Thaddeus M. Baklinski   SAN FRANCISCO, March 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The California Supreme Court will hear arguments tomorrow on the constitutionality of the state’s homosexual marriage ban.   The California law that limits marriage to heterosexual couples is being challenged by 15 homosexual couples as well as the city of San Francisco and a homosexual-rights group, all of whom argue that the ban is unconstitutional discrimination.   Several California religious and conservative advocacy groups, including the California Catholic Conference, National Association of Evangelicals, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, and The Church of Jesus Christ of […]