LifeSite Daily News for Friday November 10, 2000

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“To fail to understand that the issue of life is the prime issue before us as a nation is to stick our heads in the sand.”

– Cardinal Bernard Law in his Oct. 30 column in The Pilot entitled “Take a well formed conscience to the voting booth”
https://www.rcab.org/pilotlaw/Column110300.html

DAY WINS DEBATE BY STANDING STRONGER ON RIGHT TO LIFE

OTTAWA, Nov 10 (LSN.ca) – Canadian Alliance Leader Stockwell Day was the hands down winner in last nights Leaders debate according to CTV news and Sun Media polls. They show (early this morning) nearly 70% of respondents chose Day as the winner with the closest rival around 20%. A breakdown of the debate showed Day performed especially well in the early part of the debate despite the fact that the “abortion” question was raised.

The abortion issue that has caused Day so much trouble over the past week disappeared as an issue of contention. Day addressed it honestly saying:
“these are very sensitive topics and I think the ultimate of respect has to be accorded to all people who are involved in those discussions. I’ve said every year of the 14 years that I have been involved in government that I happen to be one of those people who believe life begins at conception. Many doctors agree with that, many do not. Many citizens agree with that, many do not. But I’ve always said that it should be talked about in a very respectful way. The Canadian alliance itself doesn’t have a position on that particular topic, but we do have a position saying if citizens want to discuss issues and we want to discuss things, they can be free to do that. We even propose referendum on any variety of issues that citizens, not members of parliament, that citizens feel are important to them…”

Once presented in this manner the other leaders were left without a footing on which to attack Day, although Day missed an opportunity to attack vulnerabilities of the other leaders on the issue. Even the abortion-hungry media were only able to say that Day held his ground.

Day attacked the Liberals for their continuing refusal to act on the Jan. 1999 Sharpe decision which overturned B.C.’s law on child pornography possession. He stated to Chretien, “You put the rights of pedophiles over children” and added, “When the government of the land refuses to protect the children of the land from the predators of the land, that government should forfeit the right to govern the land.” Chretien gave the standard Liberal response that his government was respecting the law and letting the issue be resolved by the courts. Day’s quick comeback was to ask the PM why then was he trying to gag free speech by pushing a law limiting third-party election spending which the courts have repeatedly rejected.

Given the positive results from both from the public and even from the media, social conservative Alliance supporters hope Day will continue a straightforward strategy and finally add some well-reasoned articulation of his social conservative views, demonstrating a confidence in his convictions. Political observers note that last night’s improved performance by Day must continue and be expanded in order to win over committed social conservative Liberal voters.

For the Sun Media poll see:
https://www.canoe.ca/CNEWS/polls.html

For CBC coverage of the abortion question in the debate:
https://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/electionview.cgi?/news/2000/…

KANGAROO HUMAN RIGHTS COURTS IN LIMBO AFTER BIAS CHALLENGE

OTTAWA, Nov 10 (LSN.ca) – The Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) is in trouble after a judge has declared it biased. In a court case involving a pay equity dispute with Bell Canada, Federal Court Justice Daniele Tremblay-Lamer found the tribunal was not “an institutionally independent and impartial body.” The National Post reports that the judge’s November 3 decision has already led to a similar ruling in a Case for Canada Post. However, the CHRC is appealing, seeing that its partisan strong-hold is being threatened.

The human rights tribunals are notoriously biased in promoting homosexuality. The commission has place homosexual activist lawyers as judges in many cases. Provincial Human Rights Tribunals (increasingly identified by critics as “kangaroo courts”) in Ontario and New Brunswick have thus far ordered three mayors to proclaim gay pride days and weeks despite their religious objections. The Mayors of London and Hamilton were fined $10,000 and $5,000 respectively for their “discrimination.” The court costs and fines for Mayor Dianne Haskett of London totaled more than $70,000. In February, an Ontario tribunal ordered a Christian printer to pay $5,000 in damages to a homosexual group for refusing to print pro-homosexual propaganda.

For more on the case against the Christian printer see:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2000/mar/0003031 .html

For more on the Bell Canada ruling see:
https://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20001…

PARENTS OF SIAMESE TWINS COULDN’T AFFORD TO APPEAL CASE

Italian Cardinal Blasts Britain for “Unacceptable” Situation

RAVENNA, Italy, Nov 10 (LSN.ca) – Italian Cardinal Ersilio Tonini, who intensely followed the case of the Siamese Twins, has condemned the situation in Britain where the family did not appeal the courts decision to allow the separation of their children since they could not afford it. The parents, devout Catholics from Malta, objected to the operation since it would intentionally kill one of their children. Zenit News reports that Cardinal Tonini commented, “Is it possible that in a civilized country like Great Britain those who have money can appeal and the rest not? In such a critical matter, do we realize that the condition of poverty is what decided everything? This is unacceptable.”

The cardinal also observed “Reading English newspapers one learns something that was not mentioned outside of England. When the court confirmed the decision, it authorized the operation but did not order it. Therefore, it gave total room to the doctor’s freedom of conscience.”

For more see the Zenit News report at:
https://www.zenit.org/english/archive/0011/ZE001109.html#item…

OMINOUS EUTHANASIA PRECEDENT SET IN NETHERLANDS

AMSTERDAM, Nov 10 (LSN.ca) – The same judicial activism which led to acceptance of euthanasia for the terminally ill in Holland, has now led to assisted suicide even for those who are healthy. Last week a Dutch court acquitted Dr. P. Sutorius after he gave a lethal drug cocktail to Edward Brongersma, an 86-year-old former PvdA (Labour Party) senator in The Netherlands who was neither physically or mentally ill.

London Free Press columnist Rory Leishman details the case and the judicial activism which thwarted the laws against euthanasia in the Netherlands. He warns: “In The Netherlands, as in Canada, appointed judges have usurped the authority of elected legislators to define the law.”

For more see Leishman’s coverage at:
https://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/leishman.html

ORDER CAMPAIGN LIFE COALITION CHRISTMAS CAKES

Campaign Life Coalition’s successful annual Christmas fundraiser is now underway. Gourmet Christmas Fruitcakes are being sold through Churches and other organizations. They can also be ordered by telephone for delivery anywhere in North America.

Please consider supporting CLC by ordering these cakes as excellent Christmas gift items or for your own consumption. They are also purchased by businesses and organizations for gifts for customers or employees.

For more information see:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/shop/cakes.html

ELECTION ROUNDUP

LifeSite has produced a special page entitled “The Moral Obligations of Voters and Politicians” covering statements by religious leaders on voting pro-life. Please use this reference page for reminding others that the right to life is the most important issue in deciding where to place your vote.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/interim/election2000/moralobligation…

The National Post reports that the Liberal strategy to defeat Stockwell Day will be by “‘carpet-bombing’ the electorate with harsh references designed to inspire fear of the Canadian Alliance leader and his party’s policies.” “You have to keep them in the box,” one Liberal insider said. “We’re carpet-bombing them because Stockwell Day is a damn good speaker but he does a very bad defence.” Liberals have also produced negative TV ads that will be used only if they begin to lose ground.
https://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20001…

When reporters attempted to attack Canadian Alliance MP Deborah Grey on abortion and reintroducing the debate, Grey responded brilliantly. “As a woman I think it’s good that finally people right across the country would get a say on it rather than the politicians,” said Grey, MP for Edmonton-North. (quoted in Times Colonist (Victoria) Wednesday, November 8, distributed by Pro-Life E-News.)

LIFESITE NEWSBYTES

Zenit News reports that the German Catholic lay organization Donum Vitae, which took over the crisis pregnancy counselling centres after the pope urged the German Bishops to halt the practice of handing out abortion counselling certificates, has been condemned by the Vatican. Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, papal nuncio in Germany, revealed the contents of a letter in which Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, explains that “whoever continues to operate in the system of counseling centers is placed in open opposition to the Pope.”
https://www.zenit.org/english/archive/0011/ZE001108.html#item…

Reuters reports that the first wrongful-birth suit in France was taken up last week as a French couple, Josette and Christian Perruche, say their son Nicolas was born deaf, part-blind and mentally retarded in 1983 after their doctor and a medical laboratory failed to realize that Josette had caught rubella during her pregnancy. They say they would have aborted their son.
https://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001103/wl/france_birth_dc_…

Safe sex pushers are bound to be in an uproar as scientists have discovered that a cancer causing virus can be spread by kissing. The research published in the New England Journal of Medicine says kissing may be what spreads human herpes virus 8 (HHV-8) among men. HHV-8 is the cause of Kaposi’s sarcoma, a cancerous tumour that usually appears as purplish raised blotches on the skin or in the mouth.
https://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1012000/10128…

US NEWS ROUNDUP

On Tuesday Maine rejected assisted-suicide on a ballot measure by a narrow margin of 52 percent to 48 percent. The ballot question read: “Should a terminally ill adult who is of sound mind be allowed to ask for and receive a doctor’s help to die?”
https://www.portland.com/news/state/001108suicide.shtml

On a ballot measure in Colorado, voters decided against a pro-life informed consent measure which would have required a 24-hour waiting period before abortions and a disclosure on paper and on video detailing the procedure’s risks, the local adoption agencies available and the feeling a fetus might have. (Pro-Life E-News)

A 24-year-old newspaper intern has been fired for writing a headline in the Spokesman-Review that referred to as a Nazi the Roman Catholic priest who heads Gonzaga University . The move was likely initiated due to Fr. Robert Spitzer’s strong pro-life stand. Last spring he banned a representative from Planned Parenthood from speaking on his campus. The Catholic League demanded the termination of employment of Robin Moody, the intern.

In an insightful column in the National Review, Michael Long, a director of the White House Writers Group warns that VP Al Gore is set to launch a major media and propaganda campaign against the Electoral College system claiming he should be President since he won the popular vote. See “The Coming Gore Air War” at:
https://www.nationalreview.com/comment/commentprint110800e.ht…

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