On November 18, Private Members' Bill 207, the proposed conscience legislation presented by Maurice Vellacott (ReformWanuskewin, Sask.), came before the House of Commons for one hour of debate.

The much awaited vote on conscience was ruled non-votable, despite the unwritten rule that 100 signatures by MP s in support guaranteed a debate in the House followed by a vote.

Only Mr. Vellacott spoke in favour of the Bill, so after 15 minutes the debate collapsed.

Many questions will be raised about the private members' procedures and why no other pro-life members were present to speak on this issue. Furthermore, where was the outcry from pro-life MP s when the committee ruled the bill non-votable?

Senator Raymond Perrault introduced a bill to protect the conscience rights of health care workers. Bill S-11, which was originally introduced by Senator Stanley Haidasz who has since retired, would amend the Criminal Code to prohibit coercion in medical procedures that offend a person's religion or belief that human life is inviolable from fertilization to natural death. The bill came in response to petitions from over 8,000 Canadians, mostly nurses and others connected to health care, to provide protection for health-care workers who refuse to assist in practices such as abortion, euthanasia, or the distribution of contraception and abortifacients which go against their consciences. Canada is one of the few countries without such legal protections. Many healthcare workers have lost their jobs or been otherwise pressured for refusing to co-operate in such practices. We are gradually losing many of the best healthcare workers because of this. This is especially timely because pro-life pharmacists will now be faced with distributing the abortion drug Preven.

Abortion in Canada has moved from abortuaries and hospitals into the medicine cabinet as Roberts Pharmaceuticals has begun marketing the abortifacient drug Preven. CLC Canada and Alliance for Life Ontario called for a boycott of "all products produced by Roberts Pharmaceuticals and pharmacies which dispense the drug." The government's health department okayed the drug quietly in March but public awareness of the approval surfaced only last month as the drug company geared up to market it. However, in September, LifeSite News, reported that Preven was approved last spring. This raises serious concerns about the accountability and openness of the approval process.

Roberts Pharmaceutical Canada Inc. tried to distinguish the pill, Preven, from RU-486, a French-made abortion drug. Vanessa Eaton, a Toronto-based spokesman for the Canadian branch of Roberts said "It is not the abortion pill. The abortion pill aborts a pregnancy. Preven prevents pregnancy." But Preven works by suppressing ovulation or preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg in the wall of the uterus. Therefore, Preven, which is to be taken within 72 hours after sexual intercourse, can be and often is abortifacient.

Karen Murawsky, Director of CLC's Ottawa Public Affairs Office, notes that "Once a sperm and an egg meet and the egg is fertilized, you then have a new human being, one that is biologically accurate. You have the total DNA, you have everything that ever will be." Preventing implantation is "like putting a newborn child in a desert and walking away." Preventing implantation kills the newly conceived child and it is wrong. It is a mistake to consider it anything but abortifacient. Preven is nothing less than a do it yourself abortion kit. And just like abortions committed at the abortuaries across this country, there is no follow-up check-up or counselling. Thus unsuspecting women will not have the physical and psychological care they require after an abortion. The ease with which the drug, with still uncertain long-term side effects, is available is amazing. It can be bought over the Internet for US $48 plus a "consulting fee" and shipping and handling.

The Globe and Mail reported that Planned Parenthood has been quietly distributing what is effectively the same medicine, by giving women the birth control pill Ovral and telling them to double the doses in the first two days after intercourse. Planned Parenthood Canada Executive Director Bonnie Johnson says she expects demand for Preven to be high and admits that "We've been waiting for this since 1974, so obviously we're ecstatic." However, Preven is not that successful, failing one out of every four times. Many women might still then go for a more traditional abortion once their first attempt fails. There is also a pregnancy kit which encourages women to use it to check if they are pregnant. But such pregnancy tests won't show anything in the time-frame they are supposed to be used. It is a major cash cow for the drug company. The abortion and contraception industry is going to make a killing on this one folks.

CLC has called for a boycott of all of Roberts products. They include: Advantage 24, Agrylin, Alcojel, Allenbury Basic Soap, Amyl Nitrite, Ascorbic Acid, Bacitracin Zinc, Barriere, Barriere-HC, Betnesol Preparations, Betnovate Preparations, Cheracol, Citrocarbonate, Colace, Dequadin Preparations, Duvoid, Eminase, Entacyl, Ephedrine HCL, Estrace, Florinel, Glaxal Base, Grisovin FP, K-Lyte, K-Lyte/CL, Mucomyst, Mycil, Peri-Colace, Prevavite, Pro-Banthine, Propaderm, Replens, Rimso-50, Slow-Mag, Stilbestrol, Trandate. Please do not buy Roberts products and make sure your pharmacist knows why you don't want these products. Note that many of these drugs are also manufactured by other companies. Ask what brand the drug is and reject the Roberts version.

Liberal Senator Sharon Carstairs introduced and Liberal Senator Michael Kirby seconded a bill that would allow euthanasia.. Bill S-2, the Medical Decisions Facilitation Act, proposes allowing doctors to give medication which will knowingly end life without facing penalty. Furthermore, the legislation would allow physicians to withhold life-sustaining "treatment" which would undoubtedly include nutrition and hydration. In early October, LifeSite News reported that Carstairs had unexpectedly resigned her post as deputy government leader in the Senate and asked to be placed back in Senate committee to pursue her projects to legalize euthanasia. In 1997, Carstairs, a Jean Chrétien-appointed senator, told the Winnipeg Free Press, "Canadians need another Sue Rodriguez to push them into legalizing euthanasia". Carstairs, and homosexual and euthanasia activist MP Svend Robinson (NDP-Burnaby Douglas), have led the charge for Canadian legislators to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of Ontario has grave concerns with the wording of the bill. There is a concern that several measures within Bill S-2 ... will either permit cases of euthanasia by omission or weaken the current statutes that act to protect incompetent, elderly or disabled (vulnerable) patients." He also questioned the need for the bill which legislates a right to refuse treatment or medication, a right which has already been established and is in no need of further clarification. He asks "Why define rights that are already established? Does Senator Sharon Carstairs have other ideas that Bill S-2 is a stepping stone to?" If Bill S-2 becomes law it puts at risk incompetent, elderly, disabled and otherwise vulnerable people.

It could also allow the intentional starvation and dehydration of elderly or disabled patients who are not terminally ill. Assisted feeding should not be defined as medical treatment, as it is in Bill S-2, because it opens up the option of withholding food and fluids from patients who are thought to be dying or who "refuse" to die. If this bill becomes law, it may become impossible to prosecute those who kill the ill or elderly by starvation. And when it becomes an acceptable practice to dehydrate and starve people to death, even if they are terminal, then it will be argued that it is more humane to kill them with a needle.

Canadian courts have established the right of Canadians to refuse medical treatment that will prolong their life. It is not necessary to define this right in legislation. What is Carstairs' real agenda? What will be the consequences of this bill? The answer to both is to open the door to a Netherlands-style regime of uninhibited euthanasia.

According to africanews.org (October 13), South Africa will allow RU-486 use by mid-2000. South Africa is just the latest country to allow this abortifacient to be given to pregnant mothers to kill their children. What's newsworthy is the story includes a quote from Andre Ullman, medical director of Roussel Uclaf, the company that manufactures RU-486. He said "RU-486 should not be regarded as a ‘do it yourself' substitute for vacuum aspiration (surgical abortion) because of the very heavy bleeding that can occur". This is an admission that the drug is dangerous and, contrary to the claims of women's groups, is not a safe alternative to abortion. Other possible side effects of RU-486 for the baby's mother include infertility, liver, kidney and heart muscle damage, lung failure, gastro-intestinal problems and convulsions.

On October 27, Henry Morgentaler called on the Quebec government to pay for abortions committed at private abortuaries. Currently, the government pays for abortions committed at hospitals and the doctor's fee (about $100) at private abortuaries. Morgentaler is seeking payment for all expenses at his Montreal abortion mill, which would cost about $450 per abortion. Currently, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Manitoba do not pay for abortions at private facilities, although the National Post reports Morgentaler thinks the newly elected premiers in Manitoba and Nova Scotia will change their abortion-funding policies. Campagne Quebec-Vie President Gilles Grondin says that the Quebec government might begin funding Morgentaler and almost another dozen private abortuaries because "the Parti Quebecois is a prisoner of the feminists." Several years ago Bouchard was criticized for talking about Quebec women's duty to have more children and he was chided by feminists. The Premier and his party are still smarting from that incident and may not have the guts to stand up against the special-interest groups over abortion. Grondin says the promotion of abortion is cultural suicide. About 30,000 abortions are committed in the province each year, a number equal to a small city.

On October 27, without significant debate and just two days after introducing it in the legislature, Ontario passed legislation giving homosexuals the same rights as common-law spouses, including the right to adopt children. Incredibly, copies of the 49 page Bill 5 were not available until just hours before the final readings. Not only was public debate avoided by the obscenely rushed passage of the bill, but accountability to the Ontario public was abandoned when this major change in law was passed without a recorded vote. No member of the governing Tories other than Attorney-General Jim Flaherty rose to speak on the issue. The Pontius Pilate silence of Tory MPPs in this important debate was an abdication of their responsibility to the voters.

The bill was a response to last spring's activist Supreme Court decision in M v H, where the unelected court ordered the elected Ontario government to correct discrimination against same sex couples in S.29 of the Family Law Act. Premier Mike Harris could have invoked the notwithstanding clause of the Charter or, most importantly, followed other credible strategies suggested to him by pro-family legal experts. He instead chose the worst possible alternative and sold out the family. Furthermore, the government went farther than it was directed to by the Court because the M v H ruling required only that homosexual partners be granted support after breakdown of relationships. See the LifeSite News archives for the Oct. 28 special report on this shocking vote. The Harris government's track record has been one of advancing the gay activist cause much more than either the Liberals or NDP were able to do.

On November 5, independent health researcher Isabelle Begin told a news conference in Ottawa that government statistics show that up to 7.7 percent of Canadian women who have abortions end up hospitalized for an average of two days. She said that the abortion industry lies about how dangerous abortion really is. "To this day, women are indeed reassured in pre-abortion counseling, in hospitals and abortuaries in Canada, that legally induced abortion is safer than a tonsillectomy," she said.

Figures from Statistics Canada's Hospital Morbidity file for 1992-93, the last fiscal year for which data are available, show that hospitalization occurred in the case of 3,723 legally induced abortions or attempted abortions out of a total of 103,244. Hospitalization occurred in a further 4,171 cases of "unspecified abortion," a category listed separately from spontaneous abortion or miscarriage. The total is 7,894, or 7.7 percent. How many women would have an abortion if they knew the inherent health risks to themselves because of this violent attack on their bodies? Congratulations to Ms. Begin for exposing the lies behind the abortionists' claim that abortion is a safe procedure.

On November 5, a United Nations human rights committee ruled that Ontario's funding of only Catholic denominational schooling is a violation of international agreements and gave Canada 90 days to come up with a solution. The order, however, is not legally binding. In this case, the Ontario government has responded that it is committed to the current system of funding, but the federal government appears to be taking the ruling more seriously. A Foreign Affairs spokesman, said "The government of Canada will not be able to provide a response until the decision is first studied and consultation is undertaken with the government of Ontario, keeping in mind that education is a provincial responsibility." The UN has once again shoved aside any consideration for national sovereignty as it ignored the Constitutional right of Catholics to direct their taxes to support the Catholic school system.

A report by condom manufacturer Durex, released on September 21, reveals that Canadian children begin sexual promiscuity at a younger age than children in other countries around the world. The Durex(R) Global Sex Survey, which questioned youth aged 16-21 in 14 countries, indicates that the average Canadian child begins their sexual activity at age 15. Such promiscuity is probably linked to Canadian sex education classes, a connection recognized by teens themselves. In September, the papers reported the astonishing story of a 14-year-old boy in England who had impregnated his 12-year-old girlfriend and how he blamed graphic sex education for his behavior. He also boasted of having sex with 10 other girls. "It is the school's responsibility," the boy said, "showing us videos of men and women naked. After all, we are just children." Yet, the condom manufacturer demands more sex education -- sex education that not surprisingly pushes condom use on Canadian teenagers -- rather than the promotion of abstinence and puts millions of dollars into the hands of the pushers.

The Wanderer reports that the web site for the US government's National Institutes of Health (NIH) advertises the availability of aborted baby body parts for research. According to the Wanderer, the guide of available human fetal tissue from the NIH says "The laboratory, which is supported by the National Institutes of Health, can supply tissue from normal or abnormal embryos and fetuses of desired gestational ages between 40 days and term." The NIH guide confirms the horror story of the baby parts market in vivid detail even down to the express shipping of the "specimens" in this grisly body part harvesting and trafficking trade. The website advertises that parts can be ordered to specification. The ad so wholly dehumanizes the child that it is not even apparent that we are talking about the dismembered parts of an aborted child.

That experimental treatment for Parkinson's disease involving the injection of brain tissue from aborted babies is nothing new. What is new is the admission by some researchers over the handling of "control group" subjects in its experiments. Control group subjects are patients who are not actually given the treatment but who are led to believe they are being treated in order to test for placebo effects. These people have had holes drilled in their heads just like experimental subjects but are not given the supposedly beneficial injection of baby brains. Apparently, Canada is leading the way in these experiments, primarily at the lab of Dr. Ivar Mendez at Dalhousie University in Halifax. Dr. Mendez has received a $90,042 grant from the Medical Research Council of Canada for 1999-2000.

On October 27, Libby Davies (NDP-Vancouver East) moved for leave to introduce Bill C-273, to amend the Criminal Code to prohibit spanking as a form of discipline and punishment for children. Before the House of Commons she said, "The repeal of section 43 would make it clear that the use of physical force as a means of discipline is totally unacceptable and inappropriate for children and should not be sanctioned by law." It is the latest attempt by Parliament to restrict parental rights and advance the implementation of a host of UN anti-family and ultimately anti-life policies.

Pro-life groups in BC have demanded the resignation of Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh after learning the NDP contributed money to the BC Pro-Choice Action Network. Ted Gerk of the Pro Life Resource Centre, said the $25,000 funding of a political activist organization is unbelievable. In 1990, the action network held an illegal sit-in of former Justice Minister Kim Campbell's office. It is wrong for the government to fund a group that uses illegal means to advance its goals or to assist only one side of political disputes.

On September 30, BBC News reported that abortion in England and Wales jumped by 4.3 per cent in 1998 to a total of 187,402 abortions. Although all age groups saw abortion rates rise, the greatest increases were for girls 16-19 years of age. 26.5 out of every 1000 young women had an abortion. Amanda Callaghan, of the pro-abortion British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said a rise in the number of abortions was not necessarily a bad thing as it is a sign that women are taking their "family responsibilities extremely seriously ..."

CLCY executive director Tanya Granic has heard from pro-life youth in BC, Alberta and Ontario as responses are just now coming in as youth join Campaign Life Coalition Youth to get involved doing pro-life work in their schools and local communities. However, we need youth from all ten provinces so please, if you know any students in high school or university who might be interested, tell them about us. The establishment of CLCY follows a request from the CLC National Board that a comprehensive youth program be established nationwide to recruit and train young pro-lifers. Their mandate extends to working closely with other pro-life youth groups and established educational/political groups in their areas. In November, Tanya delivered an inspirational speech at the annual dinner of Campaign Life Niagara. Together with Alex Schadenberg of the Ontario Euthanasia Prevention Coalition they informed and charged up the pro-life audience. Congrats to Niagara's Gerarda Savoie and her organizing committee. Newsbites: Alberta's Minister of Learning, Dr. Lyle Oberg, informed the province's school boards that they should get parental permission before children are made to participate in the UNICEF sponsored National Election on the Rights of Youth.

Yours for life,
Jim Hughes
President, Campaign Life Coalition