|
|
Click Item for More
Information
|
|
|
Tax funded
Abortions in NS [FAQ's]
|
||
|
Oh! Canada
Contact: clcns@clcns.com |
||
 |
1. Bella, Almost Too Good To Be True - May 14, 2007
Dear Colleague,
Director Alejandro Monteverde's new film, Bella is a movie that is going
to be much talked about in pro-life, pro-family circles. This film has swept
even the secular film world off its feet. Major producers however, are still
hesitant to support anything that is not "mainstream." Please do what
you can to promote this film and its pro-life message.
Steven W. Mosher, President
Bella: Almost too Good to Be True - by Colin Mason
"If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." This line,
spoken by Mexican actor Eduardo Verstegui, opens the movie Bella, one
of the most phenomenal films I have ever had the privilege to experience. The
film is touring colleges right now to work up interest in its theatrical run,
and I was able to screen it with about 200 students from Christendom College.
The experience was deeply rewarding to me, not only as a long-time film buff,
but as a pro-life Catholic as well.
Back in August 2006, I was attended a private screening the film's rough cut, and even then was floored by its grace, beauty, and simple depth. Apparently the audiences at the Toronto Film Festival were, too.
In September 2006, that same unfinished cut moved audiences of every political and religious persuasion, and went on to win Toronto's coveted People's Choice Award. To give an example of what an accomplishment this is, two of the many other films premiering at this festival were Babel and The Last King of Scotland, both of which were highly acclaimed works that went on to win Oscars. Thus, to see the film's vastly improved final cut at Christendom College was an experience to remember.
Director Alejandro Monteverde knows only too well
that if you want to make God laugh, you tell Him your plans.
Bella tells the story of a young single waitress in New York City who
becomes pregnant, loses her job, and struggles with the decision of whether
or not to keep her child. In the meantime, she encounters a mysteriously compassionate
Latino chef, who has suffered a tragedy in his past, and is perhaps the only
person in her life who really cares about her. During the course of the film,
a decision is reached that will change both of their lives.
Bella is not only an artistic triumph, but a moral and spiritual one
as well. Metanoia films, the small production company responsible for the movie,
states its mission as "to use film to make a positive difference in the
culture and in peoples' lives." The film contains none of the titillative
sensuality or violence of many of its cinematic counterparts. There is no blasphemy.
It depicts the family: intact, loving, and responsible, and contrasts it with
the empty loneliness of individualism and promiscuity. And it depicts abortion
for the frightening, devastating, futile choice that it actually is.
How did a crowd of some of the world's most left-leaning
elitists vote Bella
the winner of the People's Choice Award?
How did a film like this do so well in Toronto? How did a crowd of some of
the world's most left-leaning elitists vote it the winner of the People's Choice
Award?
It would be an insult to the artistic integrity of Bella to call it
a film with an agenda. The movie refuses to put forward any of the tiresome
socio-political mores that plague so many "serious" films today. Simply
put, there is nothing to argue with in Bella. Without pontificating or
moralizing, the movie is artistically direct, viscerally powerful, and steadfastly
pro-life. There is no pretentious posturing, no hyper-aware political overtones.
It's just simple, and powerful, stirring basic emotions that are fundamental
to the human experience. So fundamental, in fact, that audiences of all political
persuasions have fallen for the film.
In the words of producer Leo Severino: "You can't argue with life."
At the end of the day, there is no argument to be made against the image of
the child, the idea of the tiny human being growing within a mother's body.
Life is universal, no matter how many people try to reduce it to a science or
a math formula. The film capitalizes on that fact, and gracefully but directly
pulls us toward the inevitable truth.
But Bella needs help. American theater companies have only agreed to carry the film in a limited distribution, and only as far east as the Midwest. If they can raise enough interest in other places, interest to the point where seats in theaters are sold out, Bella can reach a much wider distribution. Similar to The Passion of The Christ before it, whether or not the film will go to more theaters will all depend upon how well it does, and how much interest there is.
Call Metanoia films. E-mail them. Let them know how important this film is to you. Organize church groups and youth groups, and get families to go see the film and promote it to their friends. Interest and excitement about this movie is key. If the response is mediocre, theaters will drop Bella quickly, before it has really had the chance to shine. It is up to us not to let that happen.
Metanoia films can be reached by phone at (310) 500-5097, or email at contact@metanoiafilms.com
Colin Mason is the Media Director at PRI.
PRI
P.O. Box 1559
Front Royal, VA 22630
USA
Phone: (540) 622-5240 Fax: (540) 622-2728
E-Mail: colin@pop.org
Media Contact: Colin Mason
(540) 622-5240, ext. 209
(c) 2007 Population Research Institute. Permission to reprint granted. Redistribute widely. Credit required.
2. Bloedow Interviewed On Wisconsin Talk Radio Program, Crosstalk - May 23, 2007
News release - May 23, 2007
Bloedow interviewed on Wisconsin talk radio program, Crosstalk
RUSSELL, ON - Tim Bloedow, author of "State vs. Church: What Christians
Can Do to Save Canada from Liberal Tyranny," was interviewed today on the
Christian talk radio program, Crosstalk, out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
You can listen to the interview by going to the Crosstalk home page at http://www.crosstalkamerica.com/
and looking for the May 23 broadcast at the top of the page. We will also have
the interview posted on our website or linked from our website before the end
of this week.
Crosstalk is part of the VCY America - http://www.vcyamerica.org
- Christian media network. Thank you Ingrid Schlueter and Jim Schneider for
your interest in my book and the culture-war taking place on Wisconsin's northern
border.
After you have listened to the interview, please visit our website and order
your copy of "State vs. Church."
And please forward this notice to your friends. Thank you.
- 30 -
For more information, contact us via our website at
http://www.christiangovernment.ca/contactus.php.
3. In Defense Of Life Against Euthanasia - May 18, 2007
Note from Cheryl, CHN,
Some days are definitely better than others - yesterday one of the better days.
I have written a few letters to various journalists but rarely hear back. Yesterday
I got a very prompt reply to my letter, and the gentleman wrote again this morning
to confirm he will be publishing my letter, which I am sharing with all of you.
I have to admit, I'm tickled pink to read his response, especially this: "Perhaps
I should re-assess my support for euthanasia after all." It shows some
journalists are willing to hear the truth, and writing letters isn't futile.
Cheryl, CHN
Regarding your article:
Mercy not an excuse
Dear Mr. Oxley,
I read your article, noting you favor euthanasia, but that you are a bit concerned
that had Frank Lund been found not guilty, as you believe it would have set
a precedent.
You said, "I'm broadly in favour of euthanasia. For those struck down
with incurable diseases, surely the right to a dignified death - and to be able
to choose the time and manner of that death - is a basic human right."
I am curious, where do we find the "basic human right" code? I realize
euthanasia is legal in the Netherlands, and e.g., PAS is accepted in Oregon,
but it is the "right" I have trouble with. As a Christian, I know
I have no such right - I have no right to kill or ask to be killed. The Criminal
code of Canada prohibits me from assisting suicide - thus no such right exists
legally, however we do have the right to refuse medical treatment.
Your concern for the vulnerable who lack the mental capacity to decide, is
well grounded. I wonder if you have explored or researched the World Federation
of the Right to Die newsletters as I have. Doctors and lawyers in several countries,
who belong to that organization, are working hard to find ways to change the
laws so that those with dementia and Alzheimer's can be legally bumped off.
We know infanticide is practiced without doctors being punished; people who
are depressed qualify for euthanasia and assisted suicide; and even those who
are simply "bored with life" have had their death hastened legally.
The guidelines only work to protect the doctor, never the patient.
Palliative care was practically non-existent before the Netherlands legalized
euthanasia, and before that when it was practiced de facto, no physician received
a sentence for murder. Palliative care is practically non-existent in Mexico,
but with the help of the RTD organization, I fear it will soon be legalized
in that country.
I agree that too many patients are suffering needlessly, but do you know why?
Do you know that 95 % of pain can be relieved, but it is not so much the physical
pain that is driving patients to choose to have their lives ended as it is with
suffering. Suffering is subjective - most of us experience some serious loss
in our lifetime - the death of a loved one, loss of income etc., etc., but how
we deal with it, and if we are blessed to have support and love of others while
we suffer loss makes a big difference. Should we agree to give in to requests
to die such as when Granny feels like she is a burden, or Grandpa feels he is
no longer useful? In your opinion, do such requests fit the category of "the
basic human right" to die?
As one who researches news globally, daily - it seems rather clear that the
media is very pro euthanasia. Dr Nitchke who is helping elderly folk to go to
Mexico to obtain doses of lethal veterinarian supplies reminds me of the TV
ad, "Hands in your pockets" - we see bankers with hands in the pockets
of people taking our hard earned money. Nitchke is constantly in the news, and
his organization is always named, thus giving him free advertising - is that
not like having the media in his pockets? However if one wants facts and serious
information on euthanasia, rarely will we find it with the help of the media.
We will read much about hard cases, and hard cases make for bad law.
I am 100% opposed to euthanasia and have been for over 15 years. It is not
only for religious reasons. I am a chronic pain patient, who is fortunate to
have good pain management. I know exactly what it feels like to want to die.
Before my pain was properly managed, I cried out many times "I just want
to die!" But I never yearned for suicide, nor for my death hastened...
but for the pain to end, or at least be relieved. I am one of the lucky patients
to have good pain management. Tragically, many who are so-called 'terminally
ill' and suffering with intractable pain, are suffering needlessly because some
physicians fear their patient will become addicted to morphine, and still others
who because they are untrained, fear the patient will die if they increase the
morphine to sufficient dosage. Those who are properly trained in palliative
care know such fears are unfounded. Good palliative care is not just for the
dying.
Recently I was asked by a psychiatrist to review his new book. He has been
in practice over 40 years and routinely meets with suicidal patients. He says
though they number in the thousands, he has "never met anybody who wanted
to be dead." They all wanted to see something in their life change - to
be given some hope...
I didn't expect to go to such length in my letter to you. It is just that your
response is so common among journalists. I wonder just how much time you have
spent exploring the culture of death to arrive at being pro-euthanasia. As a
footnote, I will add a quote from another UK paper:
"In a statement yesterday Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor of England has warned doctors that they may face prison sentences if they refuse to starve and dehydrate patients to death. Criminal charges of assault could be laid against doctors or nurses, who refuse to allow patients to die, even by removal of food and hydration tube.
The Labour government unveiled its new guidelines for doctors to follow the Mental Capacity Act that is to come into effect next spring.
I ask you this, if such a law were passed, what will happen to the rights of
doctors who believe it is not in their job description to kill their patient
- who believe in the principle "do no harm"?
Sincerely, Cheryl Eckstein
Hi Cheryl,
Thank you so much for your letter. You do make some very good points - so good, in fact, that I have certainly taken on board what you have said.
Perhaps I should re-assess my support for euthanasia after all.
I thought of using some of your letter on our letters page. But it would be better as part of an article. I have asked an organization over here, called Dignity in Dying, to give me their views too and I thought we could run both pieces side by side.
Would you mind?
If not, then would it also be possible to email me a small picture of yourself to use alongside your piece. When it's published, I'll happily post a copy of the paper - or several - to Canada. And of course you'll be able to read it online.
I look forward to your reply.
Ken Oxley
This morning I received the following from Mr. Oxley: - so it looks like the whole article will be run:
Hi Cheryl,
To be honest, I don't think there's any need for you to write anything more than you already have. You summed up your thoughts and presented your argument very well in your original letter and I'm more than happy to allow that to run as an article.
I've actually sent your piece to Dignity in Dying to see how they respond to it. As yet, I haven't heard back, but it's early days as it was only e-mailed last night. I've asked them to write a piece around the same length as yours - the idea being that we can run them side-by-side.
All I really need from you now - if at all possible - is for you to email me a picture of yourself. This is not essential by any means and I'm more than happy to use your article without one, but research tells us that 'humanizing' an article tends to make people more inclined to read it.
I look forward to hearing from you,
Kind regards, Ken Oxley
Cheryl Eckstein
Founder President Compassionate Healthcare Network (CHN)
CHN is a not for profit organization, formed 1990.
CHN - 11563 Bailey Cres., Surrey, B.C.
V3V 2V4 Canada
Phone - 604 582 3844
Visit us at: http://www.chninternational.com/default.html
CHN is member of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life (WFDWRHL) Dr. Karl Gunning, Pres.
4. Lifeissues.net Newsletter #324 - May 20, 2007
Dear Friends for Life,
SPUC has criticized the UK government's plans to sanction so-called cytoplasmic
hybrids (human clones made with animal ova), and other aspects of the Human
Tissue and Embryo bill. Section 17(2) lists a number of procedures for combining
human and animal genetic material, including germ-line genetic manipulation
of human embryos and the creation of human-animal chimaeras. This is procedure
is what many pro-life activists often called as "clone-and-kill bill".
Many governments have already opposed measures similar to human cloning and also rejected any experiment in human cloning, as it would threaten human dignity. There are many ethical arguments for a ban, including fears that cloning humans will lead to "designer babies" with genetic traits selected by their parents, or a black market for embryos, and the creation of a "genetic underclass".
Most mainstream scientists are set against attempts at reproductive human cloning,
including Ian Wilmut, the British embryologist who led the team which cloned
Dolly the sheep, and Richard Gardner, who chaired a Royal Society working group
on human cloning. The most persuasive argument is that the risks are far too
great at present. It is feared that human cloning would be cruel, because the
process may result in a large number of miscarriages and deformities before
a human could be successfully cloned.
God bless, Marlon Castillo Ramirez, Assistant Editor
(A Quote:) "If we will not use all our power to strengthen the family, then as a continent there is not a future for us. We will be a continent settled by representatives of the Islamic world who care for the family... A nation which kills its children is a nation without a future." - Roman Giertych, Poland's Deputy Prime Minister and Education minister
Lifeissues.net Newsletter #324 - May 20, 2007
Table Of Contents:
1. Ministers Bow To Hybrid Pressure
2. Mobile Service Lets Users Find Nearest Morning After Pill
3. Bishops Of Ecuador Say New Constitution Must Protect Human Life And Dignity
4. Media Reports Erroneously Indicate Netherlands Euthanasia Cases Dropping
5. Mozambique: Bishops Urge Defense Of Life Against Abortion
6. Sex-Ed Textbooks That Promote Homosexuality Pulled From Schools In Panama
7. Planned Parenthood Continues To Harbor Men Who Rape Children
8. Us Abortion Industry Wants Canada Doctors Forced To Do Abortions
9. Today's Face Of Abortion In China Is A Young, Unmarried Woman
10. Pediatricians Call For Support For Adult Stem Cell Research
Focus On Asia: The United Nations is placing pressure on the Philippines to reduce its population numbers and that could mean the island nation reversing its pro-life laws that prohibit abortions. However, the strongly Catholic country has turned back previous efforts to weaken its protective laws. A representative of the United Nations Population Fund told the Filipino government that it should adopt the agency's Millennium Development Goals to eradicate poverty and hunger. http://www.lifenews.com/int283.html.
Item #1. Ministers Bow To Hybrid Pressure
Ministers have bowed to pressure to allow the creation of human animal hybrid
embryos for research. When the ban was proposed last year there were fears among
scientists it would hamper medical breakthroughs.
Hybrid embryos will only be allowed for research into serious disease and scientists will require a license. Scientists welcomed the proposals put forward in the draft fertility bill, but opponents questioned the ethics of using human cells in this way.
View full text at BBC News:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6661717.stm
Item #2. Mobile Service Lets Users Find Nearest
Morning After Pill
Pharmaceutical company Schering Health Care is partnering mobile agency Incentivated
to launch a marketing campaign for Levonelle, the emergency contraceptive pill.
The mobile service, which will be activated by women in search of their nearest
Levonelle stockist, will be publicized with an SMS call to action in Metro and
London Lite press ads.
Once the SMS has been sent, the mobile 'find my nearest' service will match
the location of the respondent with a database of chemists stocking the product,
and return addresses of the three closest chemists.
View full text at NetImperative:
http://www.netimperative.com/2007/05/14/morning_after_pill
Item #3. Bishops Of Ecuador Say New Constitution
Must Protect Human Life And Dignity
The Bishops' Conference of Ecuador affirmed this week that the country's new
Constitution should include certain indispensable guarantees, such as the protection
of life beginning at conception, the defense of marriage and the family, and
"the creation of the necessary elements" to eradicate poverty and
corruption.
In a statement, the bishops' conference reaffirmed the value and "inviolable dignity" of the human person, which should be protected by the State and by society. "Human dignity, which has its origin in God, is the primary source of man's rights and obligations," the bishops said.
View full text at CNA:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=9386
Item #4. Media Reports Erroneously Indicate Netherlands
Euthanasia Cases Dropping
A recent report published in the New England Journal of Medicine (May 10, 2007)
has been reported by the media as stating that the practice of Euthanasia in
the Netherlands has dropped since it was formally legalized in 2002.
When reading the actual report we learn of a different reality than the media has reported.
The report states that in 2001, the year before euthanasia was formally legalized in the Netherlands, there were approximately 3500 (2.6%) euthanasia deaths, there were approximately 300 (0.2%) assisted suicide deaths and approximately 8500 (5.6%) deaths by terminal sedation (sedation followed by dehydration).
View full text at Life News:
http://www.lifenews.com/bio2096.html
Item #5. Mozambique: Bishops Urge Defense Of Life
Against Abortion
The bishops of Mozambique have issued a statement on the current African debate
on the legalization of abortion.
The bishops are calling on Africans to respect life, and making a special plea politicians to protect every human life.
The parliament of Mozambique is currently debating the Maputo Protocol, article #14 of which recognizes a woman's legal right to abortion.
View full text at CWNews:
http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=51175
Item #6. Sex-Ed Textbooks That Promote Homosexuality
Pulled From Schools In Panama
The Minister of Education in Panama, Miguel Angel Canizales, ordered the removal
of four textbooks on sex education from the country's schools, after complaints
were raised over the contents of the books, which included the promotion of
homosexuality among adolescents.
According to the newspaper "El Siglo," Canizales canceled a planned evaluation of the textbooks which his office "intended to use to cement a sex-ed program throughout the country, after an avalanche of criticism" of the contents of the manuals.
El Siglo, which obtained copies of the manuals, said the contents could provide "the final push" any adolescent struggling with his or her sexuality would need to embrace homosexuality.
See the full article at CNA:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=9367
Item #7. Planned Parenthood Continues To Harbor
Men Who Rape Children
During a two-year investigation, family planning clinics associated with Planned
Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation were caught on tape covering
up what they believed was the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl. As part
of the undercover operation, Life Dynamics Incorporated of Denton, Texas, recorded
over 800 calls to facilities across America in which a female caller portrayed
a 13-year-old girl who was pregnant by an adult and wanted an abortion in order
to hide the illegal sexual relationship from her parents and the authorities.
On the tapes, many of the clinic workers are heard telling the caller that this
situation was unlawful and that they were legally mandated to report it to the
state. However, even after acknowledging this, 91 percent of the 800 facilities
contacted agreed to illegally conceal it. In fact, representatives of these
organizations-often operating on tax dollars-routinely instructed a child who
they believed to be a sexual assault victim to:
· Lie about or conceal her age or the age of the man who impregnated
her
· Participate in illegal activity in order to circumvent the state's
parental notification law
· Use a fictitious name, phone number or address when she came to the
facility
· Keep the situation hidden by altering what she would say when she came
to the facility
· Be more careful about what information she gave out and to whom
Full Article at Christian Newswire:
http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/783453123.html
Item #8. US Abortion Industry Wants Canada Doctors
Forced To Do Abortions
The head of an abortion business trade group that is comprised mostly of American-based
abortion facilities wants Canada to change its laws and force doctors there
to do abortions. Vicki Saporta, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation,
claims Canadian women are having to wait too long to get one.
The waiting time, she said, comes about because she claims just 15 percent
of doctors in Canada are willing to do an abortion - with the rest refusing
for professional or personal reasons.
Full Article at Life News:
http://www.lifenews.com/int284.html
Item #9. Today's Face Of Abortion In China Is A
Young, Unmarried Woman
Young and single is not the usual profile of a woman having an abortion in China.
Unmarried women, including teenagers, are now having a rising number of abortions,
and even constitute a majority of cases in Shanghai and parts of Beijing, according
to academic studies and health experts. And many of these women - migrant workers,
urban professionals, students and prostitutes - are having multiple abortions.
Public hospitals, which are found across China, are the busiest abortion providers.
Prices vary, depending on location. Ms. Xu said abortions at public hospitals
in cities like Beijing might average 500 Yuan, or about $65. These hospitals
are usually impersonal and crowded, and some operating rooms are equipped to
perform more than one abortion at once.
View entire text at New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/world/asia/13abortion.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
Item #10. Pediatricians Call For Support For Adult
Stem Cell Research
The American College of Pediatricians calls for an end to embryonic stem cell
research and recommends the exclusive support of already proven effective adult
stem cell research. "Not only does embryonic research require taking the
life of human embryos, it also prolongs needless suffering by delaying the development
of more promising adult stem cell treatments and cures," states Michelle
Cretella, MD, Fellow of the American College of Pediatricians.
Research using non-embryo sources of stem cells, including amniotic fluid, umbilical
cord blood, placenta and adult blood, fat and various organs, have yielded impressive
results.
View entire text at Christian Newswire:
http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/487393110.html
Get Involved:
1. Pray Daily that we all may have the courage to
be God's presence in society and strongly support those who have been deemed
"unworthy of life".
2. Be Informed at Lifeissues.net website: http://www.lifeissues.net.
3. Become A Missionary For Human Life: "Journey for Life into the Heart
of Asia" is a project, which appeals for donations to help finance travel
expenses for talks to developing countries in Asia.
Fr. Jerry's series of lectures this year emphasis "The Asian Family at Crossroads: Life Issues, Trends and Challenges". For inquires about "no-cost to your group" Lectures (including travel) to anyplace in Asia: contact Fr. Jerry. To become a supportive Missionary participant for Human Life in Asia, kindly send your donations directly to:
Fr. Jerry Novotny, OMI; LifeIssues.net, Editor; Akebono-cho 1-15-9; Kochi City, Japan, 780-8072
(Or transfer donation directly to ProLife bank account: Jerome Novotny, Shikoku Bank, Asakura Branch, No. 102-1-0080824)
Contact Editor: Jerry Novotny, OMI; Akebono-cho 1-15-9; Kochi City, Japan, 780-8072; Tel/Fax: 088-843-0406; E-Mail: jerry@lifeissues.net
Contact Assistant Editor:
Mr. Marlon Castillo Ramirez
Author of Book: "The Sights and Soul of Life"
E-Mail: mcr4lifeissues@gmail.com
Websites by Editor:
English LifeIssues Site: http://www.lifeissues.net,
Japanese LifeIssues Site: http://www.japan-lifeissues.net,
OMI Site: http://www.omijapankorea.net/index.html.
5. Marcella MacLellan Died - May 25, 2007
It is with profound sadness that I've learned of the death of Marcella MacLellan of Antigonish, the wife of long time Campaign Life Coalition board member "Joe". Joe and Cella have been board members from the humble beginnings of CLC NS and most supportive and active in attending more meeting and conferences, often traveling great distances at personal expense. They were involved long before I arrived on the scene nearly twenty years ago. They have blessed us with a legacy of pro life works and Cella will be sadly missed. Cella was not only noted for her involvement in pro-life and church related activities but will be long remembered for her gift of hospitality.
Visitations will be in Antigonish C.L. Currie Funeral Home, 135 College St., Antigonish, Sunday 2-4 pm and 7-9 pm. Funeral will be held from St. Ninian's Cathedral with Rev. Andrew Gillis presiding at 10 am Monday. Family Flowers Only.
The obituary is in today's Chronicle Herald, page B9.
Please keep Joe and the family in your prayers at this time of grief.
6. National Abortion Federation Calls On Canadian Medical Association To
Require Doctors To Refer For Abortion - May 25, 2007
The U.S. based National Abortion Federation has demanded that the Canadian
Medical Association change their policy of allowing doctors to decline to refer
patients for abortion. In a letter sent to the CMA earlier this month, Federation
president Vicki Saporta said a physician's "religious and moral beliefs"
should not take precedence over patient interests and accused the CMA of creating
delays for women with the conscientious objector policy. Dr. Colin McMillan,
president of the CMA, defended the policy in a letter to Ms. Saporta quoted
by the National Post, saying, "The CMA's policy on induced abortion does
not violate our Code of Ethics…Nor does it treat women unfairly or impede their
access to critical health care." The CMA's abortion policy was passed in
1988 and has been re-confirmed annually each year since. Concerned by threats
to doctors' freedom of conscience, Canadian Physicians for Life is urging the
public to contact the CMA and request that the protection for doctors' freedom
of conscience be strengthened.
7. Quebec Case Rekindles Assisted Suicide Debate - May 16, 2007
The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is dismayed by the coverage of the charge
of assisted suicide in Quebec by the Canadian Press.
The Canadian Press made no attempt to present the issue in a fair and unbiased
manner. The news item appears to be about the supposed "need to change
the law" rather than the alleged assisted suicide death of Chantal Maltais.
The article continues by quoting Yvon Bureau, an activist in Quebec who is
working to change the law. They then quote the activist slamming pro-life people
who supposed, "believe in life at all costs."
Nowhere in the article do they attempt to explain that the law is intended
to protect vulnerable people who are often pressured into assisted suicide or
whose life may be taken without their consent. No comment is made in the article
concerning the failure of safeguards to protect vulnerable people.
The question the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition asked the Canadian Press was:
were they attempting to report news or to make news?
Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
1-877-439-3348
Quebec case rekindles assisted suicide debate
May 16, 2007 Les Perreaux - Canadian press
MONTREAL - The case of a Quebec man accused of helping his sick uncle hang
himself is threatening to renew pressure on Ottawa to overhaul Canada's law
on assisted suicide.
Stephan Dufour, 29, was arrested this week on a charge of assisting the suicide
of his uncle Chantal Maltais, who suffered from muscular dystrophy.
Investigators with Quebec provincial police say the 49-year-old Maltais hanged
himself Sept. 8, 2006.
Police arrested Dufour after a lengthy investigation. He has been released
on a promise to appear in court July 17 in Alma, Que.
"The nephew was taking care of the uncle, he did a lot of work taking
care of him," said Sgt. Pierre Lavoie of the Quebec provincial police in
the Lac-St-Jean region 250 kilometers northeast of Quebec City.
"When our investigators questioned the nephew, a few elements came out
that led us to believe a charge of assisted suicide could be brought against
him," Lavoie said Wednesday.
Dufour's lawyer, Michel Boudreault, told reporters that Maltais suffered terribly
for years and hounded Dufour to help him kill himself.
Maltais even picked his own date to die.
"It was the same date his mother died," Boudreault told reporters
in Alma.
"He wanted to die for many years, maybe 10 to 15 years. Chantal made his
funeral arrangements. He said his body was a prison. He made several suicide
attempts, without success."
"The choice of his nephew was a logic choice for him. Out of naiveté,
Stephan Dufour was the logical person to turn to," the defence lawyer said.
Quebec has had several cases in the past 18 months that have ignited debate
in the province over whether Canada should regulate assisted suicide.
From the Alma hanging to a death by drug cocktail and a botched attempt at
asphyxiation, the Quebec cases highlight the grisly results when desperate people
with little medical knowledge try to help loved ones end their lives.
"It's terrible and makes no sense," said Yvon Bureau, an author and
activist who is pushing for a highly regulated system in Canada that would allow
people to end their lives with less pain.
Such systems exist in Belgium and the Netherlands.
Bureau says 80 per cent of Canadians consistently support the idea but politicians
fear an extremely vocal minority that will make them pay a steep political price.
"These are people who are pro-life, or believe in life at all costs,"
Bureau said. "The five per cent of pro-life extremists can overwhelm them."
Bloc Quebecois MP Francine Lalonde has pushed for assisted suicide legislation
and she says many MPs share her opinion. But her private members bills on the
subject have never been pushed ahead.
"This just doesn't make sense, and the case of this poor young man is
sad and illustrates it," she said in an interview from Ottawa.
"It's a delicate question and there are people who are against it. But
I think more and more, particularly in Quebec, we recognize the need to change
the law, with serious boundaries to prevent abuse.
"But right now there are abuses in Quebec and English Canada happening
in silence. And we must end that too."
Assisted suicide rose to the national agenda in the 1990s when Sue Rodriguez
fought all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada for the right to kill herself.
Rodriguez, who suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease, lost in a split decision
but killed herself anyway with the help of an unidentified physician in 1994.
Bureau says he is not in favour of allowing people to kill suffering relatives.
But he says people like Dufour wouldn't be moved to desperation if Canada allowed
people to end pain-wracked lives with the patient's clear consent and a proper
medical procedure.
"The assistance must be medical, practiced in a strict, secure framework,"
Bureau said.
"These other kinds of acts have to stay criminal. But they would happen
much less frequently if people had other alternatives."
Two recent high-profile assisted suicide cases in Quebec involved two women
named Marielle Houle.
In January 2006, one Marielle Houle was sentenced to three years probation
for helping her son, playwright Charles Fariala, kill himself. Houle followed
his instructions to help the 36-year-old, who suffered from multiple sclerosis,
end his life with a cocktail of drugs.
Andre Bergeron received three years probation in October 2006, after pleading
guilty to aggravated assault causing the death of his wife, who also happened
to be named Marielle Houle.
Houle suffered from Friedreich's ataxia, a degenerative and incurable disease.
Bergeron boosted Houle's dose of morphine and tried to suffocate her with a
plastic bag.
She died several days later in hospital.
8. Teen Pregnancies, Cyber Safety, Unassisted Childbirth - May 23, 2007
Teen pregnancies fall to all-time low
Today's Family News- May 23, 2007
New research shows Canada's teen pregnancy rate has reached an all-time low, but that does not mean teens are any less sexually active, the National Post reported.
An analysis of Statistics Canada data by the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada (SIECCAN) found that between 1974 and 2003, the pregnancy rate among girls aged 15 to 19 fell from 53.9 per 1,000 to 32.1. Among teens aged 15 to 17, the decline was even more dramatic, falling by more than half from 33.9 to 16.8.
But it seems this decline has little or nothing to do with teens abstaining from sex. As Statistics Canada reported in 2005, 12 per cent of boys and 13 per cent of girls reported having had sex by ages 14 or 15. Other studies reportedly show the average age that Canadian teens are having sex for the first time has remained steady at 16.5.
By their early 20s, more than 80 per cent of young people have had sex.
"Basically," SIECCAN research coordinator Alex McKay told the National Post, "[the decline] reflects the increasing opportunities and capacities for young women to control their sexual and reproductive health to a greater extent than ever before."
That includes greater knowledge of and access to contraception.
The result has been a corresponding decline in the numbers of teen live births, miscarriages and abortions - prompting the Toronto Star to declare, "Stand down, overprotective dads."
And yet the data, published this month in the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, also showed that growing numbers of teens are acquiring sexually transmitted infections (STIs), such as chlamydia, HIV/AIDS, gonorrhea, human papillomavirus and syphilis. (In 2006, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada termed the dramatic rise in STIs among Canadians generally a "hidden epidemic.")
McKay explained this is because, although sexually active teens will start off using condoms, as they get older, they stop using condoms and instead rely on the pill.
"What that says to me," said Linda Capperauld, executive director of the Canadian Federation for Sexual Health, "is that young women may be able to access contraceptive services, but they're not getting the kind of information and education and services that they need to make those decisions that will offer them dual protection from both pregnancy and STIs."
McKay agreed. "One of the things we clearly need to do in this country is promote greater consistent condom use among all young people," he told Canadian Press.
But Dave Quist, executive director of the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, cautioned parents that none of this changes the fact that abstinence from sex until marriage still remains the best guarantee of their children's future good health, both physically and emotionally.
"Social science research," Quist told Today's Family News, "indicates
that higher rates of sexual encounters results in negative impacts on later
life - education, income levels, drug and alcohol abuse, etc. - as well as a
negative effect on their children, even when they're not born until many years
later."
Parents offered help on cyber safety
Today's Family News - May 23, 2007
Telus, the telecommunications giant, is partnering with Alberta's Children's Services ministry to help give its employees a better understanding of what their kids are doing online and how to shield them from the risks involved, Canadian Press reported.
As part of a pilot project, Telus has been presenting a 90-minute information session on cyber-safety tools at its offices in five Alberta communities. Cathy Wing of the non-profit Media Awareness Network leads the sessions.
Wing said she is staggered by the lack of awareness on the part of most parents of how dangerous the Internet can be for their children from the likes of peer-on-peer cyber-bullies and sexual predators.
"They need a bit of a wakeup call," she told CP. "It's interesting how we have a very highly supervised generation of young people, more so than ever before, who are overprotected, overscheduled. Yet when they go online, it's the complete opposite.
"Because they are in their own home, they are completely unsupervised. We're trying to get parents more involved."
The session looks at privacy and marketing issues and evaluating online information.
"Particularly boys like sites where there is a lot of cruel, violent humour,"
said Wing. "We're trying to sensitize kids that a lot of these sites cross
over into racist and hateful content. We want parents to be aware of it so they
can be talking about it."
"It's been a big education," said Telus property manager Leanne Whyte,
a mother of three teenagers, after viewing the presentation. "Just the
volume of sites that are out there marketing to kids - I hadn't made that connection."
One recent study found that one in three 13-year-old Alberta boys had viewed pornography on the Internet and almost one in four had watched sexually explicit DVDs or videos "too many times to count."
Most said their parents set restrictions on the kinds of movies they can watch and never bothered to monitor their Internet activity.
The province is hoping more companies will make the information sessions available
to their employees.
Unassisted childbirth on the rise
Today's Family News - May 23,
2007
Thanks to help provided by the Internet, more and more women are opting to give birth without the involvement of a midwife, let alone a doctor, the Globe and Mail reported.
Although the choice remains controversial and uncommon, its growing popularity is evidenced by the fact that one website among several - Unassistedchildbirth.com - that offers women advice on how to calculate their due date, for example, now has upwards of 40,000 visitors each month.
"People who wouldn't have considered this years ago are considering it now," Laura Shanley of Boulder, Colorado, who runs the website, told the Globe and Mail. "I do think it's getting more into the mainstream."
Shanley herself has given birth to five children unassisted.
But most doctors and registered midwives strongly oppose the practice. They warn that their presence is needed to address potential problems such as hemorrhages and fetal distress before they can become emergencies.
"By all means, choose the home [for giving birth], but have a skilled
attendant there," said Vyta Senikas, associate executive vice-president
for the Society of Obstetricians and
Gynaecologists of Canada. She added that while childbirth is a natural
process, "you can die" doing it without properly trained assistance.
9. The American Legion, ADF, LLI Launch National Effort To Defend Veterans'
Memorials - May 24, 2007
WASHINGTON, May 24 /Christian Newswire/ - As Americans prepare for the
Memorial Day holiday, The American Legion, Alliance Defense Fund, and Liberty
Legal Institute today launched a national effort to defend and protect America's
veterans' memorials from potential legal attacks from groups such as the American
Civil Liberties Union. The joint announcement was made during at news conference
at the National Press Club.
"One person's agenda shouldn't diminish the sacrifice made by America's
veterans and their families," said ADF Senior Counsel and Senior Vice-President
of Allied Attorney Support and Coordination Joe Infranco. "Despite the
claims from the ACLU and others, crosses on veterans' memorials have been under
attack. One only needs to look at what's happened at Mt. Soledad and in the
Mojave Desert. Americans want these memorials to be protected."
ADF and The American Legion have been involved in legal efforts to defend the
cross memorial at Mt. Soledad in San Diego and the Mojave Desert Cross in southern
California against ACLU-led efforts to have them removed. Both memorials honor
American military veterans.
In January, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that an atheist's
17-year-old lawsuit seeking to tear down the cross at Mt. Soledad be declared
moot (www.telladf.org/news/story.aspx?
cid=3980). Despite that, the ACLU has again filed suit against the memorial
in an effort to have the cross removed. A federal court also granted a motion
filed by the ACLU that resulted in an order to cover the Mojave Desert Cross
so that no one can view it (www.telladf.org/news/story.aspx?
cid=4067).
"Stamping out these symbols of sacrifice is the first step to forgetting
who's kept America free and what's made America great," said Infranco.
"ADF, The American Legion, and Liberty Legal are joining together to ensure
that we will never forget the sacrifice made by so many for our precious freedoms
- including the freedom to honor our fallen heroes as we so choose."
Past National American Legion Commander Tom Bock, representing National Commander
Paul Morin who was on travel overseas, announced a concurrent national campaign
to pass legislation to plug a legal loophole that enables judges to award millions
of dollars to ACLU and other attorneys seeking to remove religious symbols from
memorials and other public venues.
"During the last Congress, The American Legion launched a national awareness
campaign to pass the Public Expression of Religion Act, known as PERA,"
Bock said. "It passed overwhelmingly in the House but its companion bill
was introduced late in the 109th Congress without enough time to get a floor
vote in the Senate. Today, its successor - The Veterans' Memorials, Boy Scouts,
Public Seals, and Other Public Expression of Religion Protection Act of 2007
has been introduced in both chambers - H.R. 725 in the House and S. 415 in the
Senate. This time, The American Legion, ADF and Liberty Legal Institute are
joined together to engage America to make this new PERA the law of the land."
In addition to identifying and cataloging war memorials across the United States
to create a comprehensive national data base, Bock said that in the coming months,
Legionnaires across America will be reaching out to all Americans to "educate
and activate" them to demand that Congress pass the legislation.
ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the truth through
strategy, training, funding, and litigation. The American Legion is the nation's
largest veterans' service organization, representing 2.7 million wartime veterans.
10. The Culture-Wise Family: Upholding Christian Values In A Mass Media World - May 24, 2007
P.S: To be helpful, I have taken the liberty to point
out the crucial facts of this long commentary in italics in red. - Robert
Jason
Who stole our culture?
Posted: May 24, 2007 - 1:00 a.m. Eastern
Editor's note: This column is an excerpt from Dr. Ted Baehr and Pat Boone's
new book "The
Culture-wise Family: Upholding Christian Values in a Mass Media World."In
the book, entertainment expert Dr. Ted Baehr and legendary musician Pat Boone
urge people to make wise choices for themselves and their families so they can
protect their children from toxic messages in the culture.
The following is Chapter 10, written by historian Williams S. Lind.
By William S. Lind
Sometime during the last half-century, someone stole our culture. Just 50 years
ago, in the 1950s, America was a great place. It was safe. It was decent. Children
got good educations in the public schools. Even blue-collar fathers brought
home middle-class incomes, so moms could stay home with the kids. Television
shows reflected sound, traditional values.
Where did it all go? How did that America become the sleazy, decadent place
we live in today - so different that those who grew up prior to the '60s feel
like it's a foreign country? Did it just "happen"?
It didn't just "happen." In fact, a deliberate
agenda was followed to steal our culture and leave a new and very different
one in its place. The story of how and why is one of the most
important parts of our nation's history - and it is a story almost no one knows.
The people behind it wanted it that way.
What happened, in short, is that America's traditional
culture, which had grown up over generations from our Western, Judeo-Christian
roots, was swept aside by an ideology. We know that ideology
best as "political correctness" or "multiculturalism." It
really is cultural Marxism, Marxism translated from economic
into cultural terms in an effort that goes back not to the 1960s, but to World
War I. Incredible as it may seem, just as the old economic Marxism of the Soviet
Union has faded away, a new cultural Marxism has become the ruling ideology
of America's elites. The No. 1 goal of that cultural
Marxism, since its creation, has been the destruction of Western culture and
the Christian religion.
To understand anything, we have to know its history. To understand who stole
our culture, we need to take a look at the history of "political correctness."
Early Marxist theory
Before World War I, Marxist theory said that if Europe ever erupted in war,
the working classes in every European country would rise in revolt, overthrow
their governments and create a new Communist Europe. But when war broke out
in the summer of 1914, that didn't happen.
Instead, the workers in every European country lined up by the millions to fight
their country's enemies. Finally, in 1917, a Communist revolution did occur,
in Russia. But attempts to spread that revolution
to other countries failed because the workers did not support it.
After World War I ended in 1918, Marxist theorists had to ask themselves the
question: What went wrong? As good Marxists, they could not admit Marxist theory
had been incorrect. Instead, two leading Marxist intellectuals, Antonio
Gramsci in Italy and Georg Lukacs
in Hungary (Lukacs was considered the most brilliant Marxist thinker since Marx
himself) independently came up with the same answer. They said that Western
culture and the Christian religion had so blinded the working class to its true,
Marxist class interests, that a Communist revolution was impossible in the West,
until both could be destroyed. That objective, established as cultural Marxism's
goal right at the beginning, has never changed.
A new strategy
Gramsci famously laid out a strategy for destroying Christianity and Western
culture, one that has proven all too successful. Instead of calling for a Communist
revolution up front, as in Russia, he said Marxists in the West should take
political power last, after a "long march through the institutions"
- the schools, the media, even the churches, every
institution that could influence the culture. That "long
march through the institutions" is what America has experienced, especially
since the 1960s. Fortunately, Mussolini recognized the danger Gramsci posed
and jailed him. His influence remained small until the 1960s, when his works,
especially the "Prison Notebooks," were rediscovered.
Georg Lukacs proved more influential. In 1918, he became deputy commissar for
culture in the short-lived Bela Kun Bolshevik regime in Hungary. There, asking,
"Who will save us from Western civilization?" he instituted what he
called "cultural terrorism." One of its main components was introducing
sex education into Hungarian schools.
Lukacs realized that if he could destroy the country's traditional sexual morals,
he would have taken a giant step toward destroying its traditional culture and
Christian faith.
Far from rallying to Lukacs' "cultural terrorism," the Hungarian
working class was so outraged by it that when Romania invaded Hungary, the workers
would not fight for the Bela Kun government, and it fell. Lukacs disappeared,
but not for long. In 1923, he turned up at a "Marxist Study Week"
in Germany, a program sponsored by a young Marxist named Felix
Weil who had inherited millions. Weil and the others who attended
that study week were fascinated by Lukacs' cultural perspective on Marxism.
The Frankfurt School
Weil responded by using some of his money to set up a new think tank at Frankfurt
University in Frankfurt, Germany. Originally it was to be called
the "Institute for Marxism." But the cultural Marxists realized they
could be far more effective if they concealed their real nature and objectives.
They convinced Weil to give the new institute a neutral-sounding name, the "Institute
for Social Research." Soon known simply as the "Frankfurt
School," the Institute for Social Research would become
the place where political correctness, as we now know it, was developed. The
basic answer to the question "Who stole our culture?" is the cultural
Marxists of the Frankfurt School.
At first, the Institute worked mainly on conventional Marxist issues such as
the labor movement. But in 1930, that changed dramatically. That year, the Institute
was taken over by a new director, a brilliant young Marxist intellectual named
Max Horkheimer. Horkheimer had
been strongly influenced by Georg Lukacs. He immediately set to work to turn
the Frankfurt School into the place where Lukacs' pioneering work on cultural
Marxism could be developed further into a full-blown ideology.
To that end, he brought some new members into the Frankfurt School. Perhaps
the most important was Theodor Adorno,
who would become Horkheimer's most creative collaborator. Other new members
included two psychologists, Eric Fromm
and Wilhelm Reich, who were noted
promoters of feminism and matriarchy, and a young graduate student named Herbert
Marcuse.
Advances in cultural Marxism
With the help of this new blood, Horkheimer made three major advances in the
development of cultural Marxism. First, he broke with Marx's view that culture
was merely part of society's "superstructure," which was determined
by economic factors. He said that on the contrary, culture
was an independent and very important factor in shaping a society.
Second, again contrary to Marx, he announced that in the future, the
working class would not be the agent of revolution. He left open the question
of who would play that role - a question Marcuse answered in the 1950s.
Third, Horkheimer and the other Frankfurt School members decided that the key
to destroying Western culture was to cross Marx
with Freud. They argued that just as workers were oppressed under
capitalism, so under Western culture, everyone lived in a constant state of
psychological repression. "Liberating" everyone from that repression
became one of cultural Marxism's main goals. Even more important, they realized
that psychology offered them a far more powerful tool than philosophy for destroying
Western culture: psychological conditioning.
Today, when Hollywood's cultural Marxists want to "normalize" something
like homosexuality (thus "liberating" us from "repression"),
they put on television show after television show where the only normal-seeming
white male is a homosexual. That is how psychological conditioning works; people
absorb the lessons the cultural Marxists want them to learn without even knowing
they are being taught.
The Frankfurt School was well on the way to creating political correctness.
Then suddenly, fate intervened. In 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came
to power in Germany, where the Frankfurt School was located. Since
the Frankfurt School was Marxist, and the Nazis hated Marxism, and since almost
all its members were Jewish, it decided to leave Germany. In 1934, the Frankfurt
School, including its leading members from Germany, was re-established in New
York City with help from Columbia University. Soon, its focus shifted from destroying
traditional Western culture in Germany to doing so in the United States. It
would prove all too successful.
New developments
Taking advantage of American hospitality, the Frankfurt School soon resumed
its intellectual work to create cultural Marxism. To its earlier achievements
in Germany, it added these new developments.
Critical Theory
To serve its purpose of "negating" Western culture, the Frankfurt
School developed a powerful tool it called "Critical
Theory." What was the theory? The theory was to criticize.
By subjecting every traditional institution, starting with family, to endless,
unremitting criticism (the Frankfurt School was careful never to define what
it was for, only what it was against), it hoped to bring them down. Critical
Theory is the basis for the "studies" departments that now inhabit
American colleges and universities. Not surprisingly, those departments are
the home turf of academic political correctness.
Studies in prejudice
The Frankfurt School sought to define traditional attitudes on every issue
as "prejudice" in a series of academic studies that culminated in
Adorno's immensely influential book, "The
Authoritarian Personality," published in 1950. They invented
a bogus "F-scale" that purported to tie traditional beliefs on sexual
morals, relations between men and women and questions touching on the family
to support for fascism. Today, the favorite term the politically correct use
for anyone who disagrees with them is "fascist."
Domination
The Frankfurt School again departed from orthodox Marxism, which argued that
all of history was determined by who owned the means of production. Instead,
they said history was determined by which groups, defined as men, women, races,
religions, etc., had power or "dominance" over other groups.
Certain groups, especially white males, were labeled "oppressors,"
while other groups were defined as "victims." Victims
were automatically good, oppressors bad, just by what group they came from,
regardless of individual behavior.
Though Marxists, the members of the Frankfurt School also drew from Nietzsche
(someone else they admired for his defiance of traditional morals was the Marquis
de Sade). They incorporated into their cultural Marxism what
Nietzsche called the "transvaluation of all
values." What that means, in plain English, is that all
the old sins become virtues, and all the old virtues become sins.
Homosexuality is a fine and good thing, but anyone who thinks men and women
should have different social roles is an evil "fascist." That is what
political correctness now teaches children in public schools all across America.
(The Frankfurt School wrote about American public education. It said it did
not matter if school children learned any skills or any facts. All that mattered
was that they graduate from the schools with the right "attitudes"
on certain questions.)
Media and entertainment
Led by Adorno, the Frankfurt School initially opposed the culture industry,
which they thought "commodified" culture. Then, they started to listen
to Walter Benjamin, a close friend
of Horkheimer and Adorno, who argued that cultural Marxism could make powerful
use of tools like radio, film and later television to psychologically condition
the public. Benjamin's view prevailed, and Horkheimer and Adorno spent the World
War II years in Hollywood. It is no accident that the entertainment industry
is now cultural Marxism's most powerful weapon.
The growth of Marxism in the United States
After World War II and the defeat of the Nazis, Horkheimer,
Adorno and most of the other members of the Frankfurt School returned to Germany,
where the Institute re-established itself in Frankfurt with the help of the
American occupation authorities. Cultural Marxism in time became the unofficial
but all-pervasive ideology of the Federal Republic of Germany.
But hell had not forgotten the United States. Herbert
Marcuse remained here, and he set about translating the very
difficult academic writings of other members of the Frankfurt School into simpler
terms Americans could easily grasp. His book "Eros
and Civilization" used the Frankfurt School's crossing of
Marx with Freud to argue that if we would only "liberate non-procreative
eros" through "polymorphous perversity," we could create a new
paradise where there would be only play and no work. "Eros and Civilization"
became one of the main texts of the New Left in the 1960s.
Marcuse also widened the Frankfurt School's intellectual work. In the early
1930s, Horkheimer had left open the question of who would replace the working
class as the agent of Marxist revolution. In the 1950s, Marcuse
answered the question, saying it would be a coalition of students, blacks, feminist
women and homosexuals - the core of the student rebellion of
the 1960s, and the sacred "victims groups"
of political correctness today. Marcuse further took one of political correctness's
favorite words, "tolerance,"
and gave it a new meaning. He defined "liberating
tolerance" as tolerance for all ideas and movements coming from the left,
and intolerance for all ideas and movements coming from the right.
When you hear the cultural Marxists today call for "tolerance,"
they mean Marcuse's "liberating tolerance" (just as when they call
for "diversity," they mean uniformity of belief in their ideology).
The student rebellion of the 1960s, driven largely by opposition to the draft
for the Vietnam War, gave Marcuse a historic opportunity. As perhaps its most
famous "guru," he injected the Frankfurt School's cultural Marxism
into the baby boom generation. Of course, they did not understand what it really
was. As was true from the Institute's beginning, Marcuse and the few other people
"in the know" did not advertise that political correctness and multiculturalism
were a form of Marxism. But the effect was devastating: a
whole generation of Americans, especially the university-educated elite, absorbed
cultural Marxism as their own, accepting a poisonous ideology that sought to
destroy America's traditional culture and Christian faith. That generation,
which runs every elite institution in America, now wages a ceaseless war on
all traditional beliefs and institutions. They have largely won that war. Most
of America's traditional culture lies in ruins.
A counter-strategy
Now you know who stole our culture. The question is, what are we, as Christians
and as cultural conservatives, going to do about it?
We can choose between two strategies. The first
is to try to retake the existing institutions - the public schools, the universities,
the media, the entertainment industry and most of the mainline churches - from
the cultural Marxists. They expect us to try to do that, they are ready for
it, and we would find ourselves, with but small voice and few resources compared
to theirs, making a frontal assault against prepared defensive positions. Any
soldier can tell you what that almost always leads to: defeat.
There is another, more promising strategy. We can
separate ourselves and our families from the institutions the cultural Marxists
control and build new institutions for ourselves, institutions that reflect
and will help us recover our traditional Western culture.
Several years ago, my colleague Paul Weyrich
wrote an open letter to the conservative movement suggesting this strategy.
While most other conservative (really Republican) leaders demurred, his letter
resonated powerfully with grass-roots conservatives. Many
of them are already part of a movement to secede from the corrupt, dominant
culture and create parallel institutions: the home schooling movement.
Similar movements are beginning to offer sound alternatives
in other aspects of life, including movements to promote small, often organic
family farms and to develop community markets for those farms' products. If
Brave New World's motto is "Think globally, act locally," ours should
be "Think locally, act locally."
Thus, our strategy for undoing what cultural Marxism has done to America has
a certain parallel to its own strategy, as Gramsci laid it out so long ago.
Gramsci called for Marxists to undertake a "long march through the institutions."
Our counter-strategy would be a long march to create
our own institutions. It will not happen quickly, or easily.
It will be the work of generations - as was theirs. They were patient, because
they knew the "inevitable forces of history" were on their side. Can
we not be equally patient, and persevering, knowing that the Maker of history
is on ours?
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55833
"The
Culture-wise Family: Upholding Christian Values in a Mass Media World"
is available at the Movieguide website.
William S. Lind has a B.A. in History from Dartmouth College and an M.A., also
in History, from Princeton University. He serves as director of the Center for
Cultural Conservatism of the Free
Congress Foundation in Washington, D.C., and as a vestryman at St. James
Anglican Church in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio.
Please visit us at our website: www.robertjason.ca
E-Mail address: bobeva@vaxxine.com
11. The Netherlands Numbers Game - May 25, 2007
The Netherlands Numbers Game, An interview with Henk Jochemsen, Director of the Lindeboom Institute in the Netherlands
Jennifer Lahl, Founder and National Director of the CBCnetwork: What is your opinion of the news coming out of The Hague reporting the sharp fall in mercy killings?
Jochemsen: My reaction is mixed. The fewer cases the better. I think that the decrease to some extent is due to better palliative care. The last decade or so the availability and quality of palliative care has increased considerably. Also the fact that the percentage of reported euthanasia cases has increased from 54 % in 2001 to 80 % in 2005 is in itself positive. Which is not to say that if it is reported, euthanasia is no problem!
On the other hand, the number of cases of continuous deep sedation with a possible life shortening effect has increased with the same number as the decrease in euthanasia cases. It should be noted that sedation need not be reported and feels safer for the physician. This does not necessarily mean that there simply has been a shift from the one to the other category. To some extent the terminal sedation has been used correctly - so without a clear life shortening effect. But the impression that sedation has been used as a hidden form of euthanasia is widely shared. So a new smoke curtain has been created.
Lahl: Also, do you think it is true that 80 percent of euthanasia cases are being reported, up from the 54 six years ago and if so why do you think it's changed?
Jochemsen: Yes, the number of cases labeled as euthanasia, that was reported has increased. But there is likely to be a certain degree of crypto euthanasia.
(Terminal sedation is essentially the addition of sedation to a dying patient. Although it is defined differently from euthanasia and appears more "natural," it has been referred as "crypto-euthanasia." As stated, almost 1 out of every 2 physicians who have practiced terminal sedation had, more or less, the goal of hastening death in their minds.)
Lahl: What has motivated you to become involved in field of euthanasia?
Jochemsen: The Lindeboom Institute was founded 20 years ago amongst others to resist the increasing permissiveness towards life ending actions of physicians and to further a biblically based life protecting and caring ethics. In the Netherlands this obviously meant to be involved in the euthanasia discussion. The euthanasia issue is not only relevant for patients in their last and difficult stage of life. It is about the very foundations of the state of law and of our civilization. Christians should be involved in that debate and in the activities to present the caring alternative!
Lahl: Regarding End of Life issues, what trends do you see that are encouraging and / or disturbing?
Jochemsen: Encouraging signs is the improving palliative care movement for patients at the end of life. Disturbing is that in the population there is an increasing idea that euthanasia is a right - which it is not in the Netherlands. Furthermore there is increasing pressure in the population and among certain physicians to extend the criteria for euthanasia/ PAS, for people with a beginning dementia and for people who 'suffer of life' without a clear medically identifiable suffering. These are symptoms of a weary culture for which ultimately only the Gospel has the answer.
Biotechnology and the Human Good, by C. Ben Mitchell, Edmund D. Pellegrino, Jean Bethke Elshtain, John F. Kilner, Scott B. Rae
This new book moves the ethical debate over biotechnology to a new level. Biotechnology and the Human Good offers a critical analysis and constructive engagement that is informed, astute, and elegant. A must-read for anyone concerned about the prospect of a post-human future. It argues that to question and critique how fields like cybernetics, nanotechnology, and genetics might affect our future is not anti-science, anti-industry, or anti-progress, but rather a way to promote human flourishing, common sense, and good stewardship.
Donate $50 or more to the CBCnetwork and we'll send you a copy of this important resource.
Donate
$50 or More (PayPal Supported)
Or Just
buy the book: $19.99 (PayPal)
Keep your hand on the pulse of the bioethics discussion. Sign up here for our weekly bioethics e-newsletter.
12. Turning The Tide - May 23, 2007
The powerful new DVD on euthanasia and assisted suicide entitled: Turning
the Tide is selling incredibly well, early in its distribution. The
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition sold more than 300 copies of Turning the
Tide within its first three weeks of distribution.
Turning the Tide, produced by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and
Salt and Light television media foundation.
Turning the Tide was designed to change the way secular society perceives
the issues of euthanasia and assisted suicide. Secular society views the issues
of euthanasia and assisted suicide to be issues related to autonomy whereas
Turning the Tide shifts the focus of the issue.
Turning the Tide uses a personal story style to focus on the vulnerability
of the person when one experiences disability, depression or symptoms related
to degenerative and/or end of life conditions. The video also focuses on issues
related to pain and symptom management and proper end-of-life care.
Groups that have viewed Turning the Tide have been incredibly impressed
by the production quality of the video and the profound comments by the people
featured in the DVD.
Catherine Frazee, disability studies professor at Ryerson University comments
in Turning the Tide that: "People like to frame this debate in the
language of autonomy, or individual choice. They'll say to me that it's all
right, you can say no, but other people will want to say yes, but I don't think
individual autonomy should ever be permitted to trump the safety and well-being
of the community."
Wesley Smith comments in Turning the Tide that: "You have a situation
in Canada and certainly in the United States, where people are having difficulty
getting access to ... good pain control, good psychiatric involvement and good
social services. Are we going to say that the answer for these problems is assisted
suicide?"
Senator Sharon Carstairs, former chair of the Special Senate Committee on Euthanasia
and Assisted Suicide answers the question on why people want euthanasia and
assisted suicide by stating: "sometimes the pain is just too horrible,
but we can deal with that. The other reason is ... they want their personal
dignity. Well that says something pretty awful about each and every one of us.
Why have they lost their sense of dignity? It is because we have made them feel
less than dignified?"
Jean Echlin, awarded the Dorothy Lea award for excellence in palliative care
in 2004 comments in Turning the Tide that: "I could never advocate for
someone to suicide when I can offer them pain management and symptom management
right where they are."
Turning the Tide features: Bobby Schindler (Terri Schiavo's
brother), Wesley Smith (Attorney, International Task Force on
Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide), Catherine Frazee (former chair
of the Ontario Human Rights Committee), Adrian Dieleman (counselor,
rehabilitation clinic for spinal cord injuries), Jean Echlin (palliative
care nursing consultant), Senator Sharon Carstairs (Canadian Senator),
Alex Schadenberg (executive director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition),
Reg Hancock (spinal cord injury survivor) and more.
A Discussion Guide for small group or classroom presentations has been designed
for use and included with the DVD package. The discussion guide enables groups
and individuals who share our concerns about vulnerable people to organize effective
presentations on the issues. It is our hope that Turning the Tide will
be used to facilitate many discussion forums throughout North America.
The Turning the Tide DVD package includes the DVD, the Discussion Guide,
a recording sheet and all the resources that are necessary for making a presentation
on euthanasia and assisted suicide.
The Turning the Tide DVD package can be ordered from the Euthanasia Prevention
Coalition for $50.00 for 1 package, $70.00 for 2 packages, or $100.00 for 4
packages by contacting the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition at: Box 25033, London
ON, N6C 6A8, email: info@epcc.ca, or
calling: 1-877-439-3348. Further bulk rates exist upon request.
13. Wait Till You See What Delta Airlines Has In Store For Kids - May 24, 2007
Thought the Super Bowl Half-Time Show Breast-Baring Stunt was Bad? Wait Till
You See What Delta Airlines has in Store for Kids
NEW YORK, May 24 /Christian Newswire/ - On May 17, Morality in Media
received a call from a citizen in Atlanta who reported that Delta Airlines had
aired HBO's "Rome," with scenes of nudity and simulated sex, on overhead
TV screens in the aisle. When he complained, he was told the program should
have been available only on "private" screens. When he objected to
showing "Rome" on "private" screens, he was told the airlines
would be editing sexually explicit scenes to three seconds or less and that
passengers who objected to content on "private" screens would be reseated.
Robert Peters, President of Morality in Media, had the following comments:
"When I fly, I often find myself watching programming that is exhibited
on a screen controlled by a passenger seated adjacent to me or in a row ahead
of me. These screens, like laptop computer or cell phone screens, are 'private'
only in the sense that each passenger controls the programming.
"While it is understandable that commercial airlines want to maximize
each passenger's choice when it comes to viewing programming on 'private' screens,
it should also be understood that other passengers sitting nearby are, for all
practical purposes, a captive audience.
"Once the flight is underway, and especially when a flight is full, passengers
can't just get up and go to another seat. Flight attendants must first find
another passenger who wouldn't mind getting an eyeful of explicit sex on a nearby
screen. If a parent and child want to move, attendants must find two passengers
seated next to each other that are willing to move.
"And what if a parent is asleep or engrossed in a book when the sex heats
up? What if a parent can't see the sexually explicit programming because his
or her view is blocked?
"Reportedly, Delta Airlines' solution to this dilemma is to edit nudity
or explicit sex to three seconds or less. To put that in perspective Janet Jackson's
breast was exposed for only 19/32 of a second on CBS TV during the 2004 Super
Bowl halftime show.
"According to Dr. Judith Reisman, '"in 3/10 of a second a visual
image passes from the eye through the brain, and whether or not one wants to,
the brain is structurally changed and memories are created - we literally 'grow
new brain' with each new visual experience."' ["Hearing on the Brain
Science of Pornography Addiction," U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science
and Transportation, Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space, 11/8/04]
"Or, take a watch with a second hand, count along (one, two, three), and
then ask yourself, 'What parent would permit a child to (repeatedly) view explicit
sex for two or three seconds?'
"In case someone thinks the caller overreacted, here are descriptions
of content on HBO's 'Rome.'
"'In "Rome," HBO really lays it on thick. Every few minutes,
somebody is gutted with a sword, nailed to a crucifix, tortured, whipped or
otherwise beaten...As for sex, the Rome of "Rome" is a veritable fornication
nation. Wenches are plucked off the streets or fields by marauding soldiers,
who rape and discard them. A noblewoman...beds everyone in sight.' [N.Y. Post,
8/24/05]
"'But in the hands of devilishly vulgar and explicit HBO, this Rome is
especially bad...as in bloody, vicious and wicked. With this much stabbing,
throat slitting and sexual debauchery, it's a city only the stoutest of heart
should visit...HBO...shows us a "Rome" that is sadistic and obscene,
with plenty of sword gougings and full-frontal nudity.' [Salt Lake City Tribune,
8/26/05]
"'The egregious sex (heightened in the next few weeks...) and the zeal
for bloody, sharp-knifed close combat, should remind everyone that this is HBO...Rome
is full of ...bloody fights and provocative sexual encounters (If you thought
the May-December lesbian tryst...was different, wait two weeks for something
far more boundary pushing).' [San Francisco Chronicle, 10/14/05]
"'I'm not sure why "Rome" has become somewhat less full of naked
women and rapes in fields...It is still far too naughty...to be shown in classrooms...'
[Chicago Sun Times, 1/11/07]
"'Rome'...has pioneered a new category: HBO Trash. The series may be HBO's
most visually spectacular outing...but "Rome" has the...soul of a
hard-R-rated soap.' [Boston Globe, 1/13/07]
"'Rome' is visually intoxicating...Abject cruelty and hedonism has rarely
looked so sumptuous...It's an endless flood of beatings, buggerings, exploitation
of young male prostitutes, grubby men refusing to rise from their bed until
they've been satisfied (and it doesn't matter by who) and lasciviously rendered
torture scenes.' [Daily News of Los Angeles, 1/14/07]
Item from Morality in the Media
14. We Need An Election, Soon - May 22, 2007
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Weston_Greg/2007/05/20/pf-4194839.html
We need an election - soon 
National Post - Tuesday, May 22, 2007
On the surface, it might not seem as if a government briefing book on thwarting
opposition members at committee hearings, a Teamsters' strike against CP Rail,
threats of a summer of native protests, the big-spending federal budget and
the Tories' green plan have much in common. Yet all are symptoms of the country's
political and policy drift as the Conservatives' minority enters its 16th month.
The normal lifespan of a Parliamentary minority is just 18 months. As the government
of Stephen Harper nears that milestone, the frays are beginning to show.
Just six months ago - even just three - the Harper government appeared well
and truly in charge of things. It had quelled potential discontent in Quebec
with its announcement that the Quebecois constituted a "nation within a
united Canada." From Afghanistan to Israel to the Francophonie and China,
it had reasserted a strong, clear Canadian foreign policy. It rearmed our military,
offered it unequivocal support in the field, cancelled the $5-billion national
day-care boondoggle in favour of monthly payments to all parents of preschool
children, took the first tentative steps toward Senate reform, proposed small
but sensible criminal justice changes to get tougher on repeat violent offenders,
ended funding for left-leaning activist agencies such as Status of Women, the
One Tonne Challenge, the Court Challenges program, and the Law Reform Commission,
and passed the Federal Accountability Act.
But its legislative agenda is now stalled by House of Commons committees controlled
by the opposition, and the government's response is not to appeal to Canadians
for a majority mandate, but rather to issue a 200- page instruction manual for
its own committee chairs on how to be just as disruptive at hearings as Liberal,
NDP and Bloc MPs.
It is no doubt true, as government whip Jay Hill contends, that the opposition
parties are "increasingly behaving as though they're a coalition government
cooking up deals behind closed doors," overriding the will of voters who
elected a Conservative government last year. But it is equally true, as NDP
Jack Layton said Thursday, that the government is acting if it were "under
siege."
This spring, the Tories also knowingly risked angering their base in an attempt
to woo the middle-ground voters needed to win a majority. They introduced a
budget heavy on spending and very light on tax relief and a "green"
plan that proposed environmental regulations so pervasive Canadians' light bulb
purchases would be controlled by federal fiat. Yet after taking these un-conservative
steps, the government failed to trigger an election. Now they seem caught between
returning to their conservative roots or pressing on with their Liberal-lite
initiatives.
And don't think the special interests haven't noticed the opportunity Canada's
minority drift presents them. The Teamsters' demand that its non-rail members
- mostly transport truck drivers - honour the countrywide picket lines of its
CP maintenance workers is as much about using national economic chaos to reassert
union influence in politics as it is about winning a better contract for workers
who maintain tracks and trestles.
Similarly, aboriginals have chosen this summer for their "national day
of action" (June 29) and for a series of disrupted and illegal blockades
of highways and rail lines in part because a minority government is a week opponent,
less likely to resist protests and more likely to cave into pressure to avoid
political damage.
The growing government dysfunctionality will eventually begin to have economic
consequences, too. We are not prepared yet to recommend the Tories call an immediate
election. But sometime soon, a national vote will be the only way to clear the
current logjam.
© National Post 2007
Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21. Secular Franciscan Order (SFO)
The First, Second and Third Quarter Newsletters have been posted and the Fourth Quarter will be done soon. Thank you for your patience.
22. Sobey's Receipts Are Valuable
Please don't throw away your Sobey's receipts. Click here and see why!
Amount of receipts collected to date: $582,085.92
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
