Thursday December 23, 1999
See today’s LifeSiteNews stories- MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM LIFESITE NEWS
- NEW SUPREME COURT JUDGE SAID TO BE PRO-LIFE
- WEB SITE EXPOSES CANADIAN ABORTION INDUSTRY SECRETS
- CANADIAN DEPOPULATION TIED TO ECONOMICS AND SELFISHNESS
- MILAN SUPPORTS POOR IN AVOIDING ABORTION
- BUCHANAN BLASTS “ARROGANT” JUDGES’ DECISIONS
- LIFESITE NEWSBYTES
- CORRECTION
MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM LIFESITE NEWS
The editors and reporters at LifeSite would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your families a happy and holy Christmas and a blessed New Year. May the love of the Little One born 2000 years ago inflame your hearts with joy and peace. Remember: Jesus is the “reason for the season.”
Please note that regular LifeSite News reports will not be published from Dec. 24 to Dec. 31. However, urgent news items will be sent out as bulletins. We will resume regular publication on Jan. 3, 2000.
NEW SUPREME COURT JUDGE SAID TO BE PRO-LIFE
OTTAWA, Dec 23 (LSN.ca) – Prime Minister Jean Chretien yesterday announced the surprise appointment to the Supreme Court of Justice Louis LeBel of the Quebec court of appeal. The judge, labeled an “abortion foe” by the Toronto Star, issued a temporary injunction in the 1989 Chantale Daigle case preventing a woman from aborting the child in her womb while her husband sought a court order to protect the child’s life. He is to take his seat at the court on Jan. 7.
Today’s Toronto Star quotes Henri Grondin, LeBel’s former law partner of 20 years as saying of LeBel, “He’s a very religious judge, and as a result, fairly strict on certain things, on religious principles. He was against the abortion because, he told me, ‘I cannot, as a Christian, support that. It is against my conscience.'” LeBel would not comment on his personal view on abortion when interviewed by the Star, but did say that he believes the question has been decided by the Supreme Court “and I am bound by that and I will apply the law.”
Other commentators familiar with LeBel note he is a conservative jurist not prone to the rampant judicial activism so prevalent in Canada’s court system today.
In the Daigle decision LeBel wrote: “In the concrete circumstances of this case, there is the problem of the legal status of a fetus at about 20 weeks. At this age, its arms and legs, organs and nervous system are formed, it has taken human form and is on the eve of crossing the threshold of viability outside the mother’s body.”
See the Toronto Star article at:
https://www.thestar.com/thestar/editorial/news/991223NEW07_NA…
WEB SITE EXPOSES CANADIAN ABORTION INDUSTRY SECRETS
VANCOUVER, Dec 23 (LSN.ca) – Ted Gerk of the Pro-Life Resource Centre in British Columbia has released a new web site cataloguing the numerous controversies around Canada’s abortion industry since the 70’s. Information from news clippings, freedom of information requests and court documents reveal the “dirty little secrets” that lie festering beneath the “safe, legal” façade of abortion facilities.
Taking information available in the public domain, the web page documents such incidents as the case of a 17-year old Ottawa girl who died from her abortion – an abortion that was not approved by the local abortion committee until after the operation was performed. Disciplinary action against the physicians involved is unknown – if it even took place at all.
Gerk said that his site “will attempt to document the untold history of abortion – the medical malpractice suits, the deaths of women from abortion, the lack of conscience in dealing with the victims of abortion.”
Clinic Watch can be viewed at: https://www.interlife.org/clinic/
CANADIAN DEPOPULATION TIED TO ECONOMICS AND SELFISHNESS
OTTAWA, Dec 23 (LSN.ca) – A report from Statistics Canada yesterday noted that the current fertility rate in Canada, at 1.55, falls far short of the replacement rate of 2.1 needed to sustain the population. The report indicates that Canada’s population die-off is related to career earnings of young Canadians which are far below that of their parents.
While some say that young Canadians are thus “priced right out of the having-babies market,” others contend that selfishness is at the heart of the issue. Jim Frideres, a professor of sociology at the University of Calgary, told the National Post, “You’ve got a feeling of relative deprivation, a generation who are not able to make what their parents are making — and they don’t want to wait 20 years to make what their parents are making. It leads to questions about how to pay the bills. You can do that by not having children — or by having fewer children.”
For more see the National Post at:
https://www.nationalpost.com/home.asp?f=991223/158783
MILAN SUPPORTS POOR IN AVOIDING ABORTION
MILAN, Dec 23 (LSN.ca) – Women who feel they must abort their babies for financial reasons are being given an option to avoid abortion in Milan. The Italian city has offered to support women who decide to allow their babies to live with about $775 (Canadian) per month. Reuters reported that Girolamo Sirchia, the head of social services in Milan explained, “our aim is to safeguard the maternity of needy people and to avoid abortions for economic reasons.”
(with files from Pro-Life E-news)
BUCHANAN BLASTS “ARROGANT” JUDGES’ DECISIONS
WASHINGTON, Dec 23 (LSN.ca) – US Presidential Candidate Pat Buchanan, commented this week on the recent Vermont Supreme Court decision to give marriage benefits to homosexual couples and the Ohio court ruling nixing school vouchers for religious schools. “I condemn these two illegitimate judicial decisions, as I condemn Roe v. Wade and other decisions where federal and state courts have ruled in unconstitutional and immoral ways,” he said. “It is time the American people took back from these arrogant judges the right to make the decisions that govern their daily lives.”
LIFESITE NEWSBYTES
Michigan Right to Life reports that on December 20, Governor John Engler signed into law a three-bill package that requires abortion clinics to meet basic health and safety requirements. The law will also provide more accurate information about abortion and the injuries it causes to women. The abortion clinic regulation and reporting law will take effect March 9, 2000. https://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY;=… -1999/0001101517&EDATE;=
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Washington-based Islamic advocacy group, today released the results of a nationwide survey of American Muslim political attitudes indicating that only 55 percent of respondents say they believe abortion should be prohibited except to save the life of the mother. https://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY;=…
Catholic World News reported that Vice President Al Gore on Tuesday said the US government will soon include homosexuals and lesbians in federal anti-discrimination laws.
CORRECTION
The Nov 24 news item on Mary Wagner erroneously stated that the BC Access to Abortion Act prohibits all pro-life activity “including silent prayer” within 50 metres of an abortion clinic. While it is true that pro-life picketing and free speech are forbidden within the Bubble Zone, silent prayer is still allowed.
In fact, several members of a prayer group that meets outside Everywoman’s abortuary every Friday morning regularly pray silently inside the Bubble Zone. Although the abortuary staff is deeply troubled by this presence, the prayer group has been reassured by the police that its activity does not fall under the provisions of the Bubble Zone law.
Silent prayer and everything that might be construed as pro-life activity is apparently prohibited by the Ontario injunction.