Although Bill C-13, the government's reproductive and experimental technologies bill, passed the House of Commons, we must emphasize the battle on this is far from over. Although Parliament prorogued before this legislation passed through the Senate, the government will bring it back in January or, more likely, February. It will be re-numbered as the bill originally known as C-56 was re-numbered C-13 after the last prorogation. But however it is numbered, the government wants to get this difficult bill out of the way before more and more of the public becomes aware of its deception on cloning and the destruction of human embryos.

There is still a reasonable chance that the bill may be improved in the Senate or split into two, which would allow the good parts to be strengthened and easily passed when it is returned to the House. There is also the possibility that the Senate may not be able to address the complex omnibus legislation before the upcoming federal election. The bill would therefore die since any bills not passed when an election is called must start all over in a new parliament.

Perhaps Canadians did not realize that the bill was headed for certain defeat until the government made its last-minute deal with the NDP. It was only after the deal was struck that the 149-109 vote that passed the bill in the House would have been possible. After the deal, the game was over. When it became obvious that they were a few votes short to defeat the bill, many Liberals made decisions that was personally pragmatic but wrong politically and morally to abstain from voting or to vote for C-13. Fully 40 MPs abstained.

We have often called Bill C-13 the worst piece of legislation since the 1969 Omnibus bill that legalized abortion. C-13 is fundamentally flawed. It permits destructive embryonic stem cell research (which kills embryonic human beings), human cloning, surrogate motherhood, the mixing of human and animal genes, the harvesting of sperm and ova after the death of a donor and other morally offensive practices. The above reasons are why most of the opposing Canadian Alliance, Liberal and Progressive Conservative MPs voted against C-13. They stood for life; they stood for human dignity. We owe them our heartfelt thanks. The 149 MPs who voted for C-13 will be judged harshly by history for supporting this legislation that, if finally given Royal Assent, will result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of embryonic human beings for ghoulish scientific experimentation. These 149 MPs have reduced human life to mere matter to be used, studied and manipulated and killed by scientists. This genie, if unleashed, will not easily go back into the bottle. That is why the fight will continue in the Senate once the current Parliament reconvenes in either January or February. Campaign Life Coalition is working to educate Senators about stem cell research and the beneficial field of adult or somatic stem cell research. It is from these ethical sources of stem cells that actual clinical trials are being performed and from which real cures and therapies are coming. We are also working to inform Senators that, despite the government's claims that C-13 bans human cloning, it does not. Analysis from various expert sources has shown that, due to inadequate or faulty definitions and terminology, C-13 does not in fact ban any form of human cloning. Let me especially repeat this one fact that is being wrongly reported by others. Bill C-13 does NOT ban cloning. MP Paul Szabo, whose amendment tightening up the definition of cloning was passed, quickly recognized afterwards that the amendment would still allow much cloning to take place. Szabo has been working tirelessly to defeat Bill C-13 or to at least have it split into two separate bills.

In a final critique of C-13 by Campaign Life Coalition Director of Research Hilary White, we stated, "The bill's evasiveness, ambiguity and scientific inaccuracy on the subject of cloning and the creation of embryos exclusively for experimentation, has opened the door to human cloning. What is worse, once the bill is passed the public perception of urgency to prohibit cloning will pass. The procedures used to create clones will quietly go on in research labs protected by the bill's faulty definitions and unhindered by any further calls for prohibition." We will be providing this comprehensive 22-page critique to the Senators to ensure that they have irrefutable information that counters many of the erroneous claims of federal Health Minister Anne McLellan and that demonstrates the enormous promise of adult stem cell research.

We will redouble our efforts to defeat this legislation, although I don't know how we can work harder or smarter than we have done for the past two years. We need you to contact the Senators from your province and urge them to defeat C-13 or to at least split it into the two separate bills recommended by Paul Szabo.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement on the passing of C-13 that shocked many pro-life Canadians by its apparent neutrality. While it said that the legislation was "deeply flawed" it added that "there is much in the proposals that could be supported." In the end, the letter from CCCB head Bishop Berthelet did not give clear direction to Catholic senators, other than to leave them to "discern the best way to protect human life and dignity after reflecting on all of the resources available to them." There is, however, a difference between deeply flawed and fundamentally flawed; the latter, which best describes C-13, indicates that whatever good may come from the passing of such legislation, its fundamental premise is that human beings can be killed and used for profit. No Catholic legislator can support such legislation that is, in the words of the Pope, "inherently unjust". This was not made clear in the Archbishop's statement. CLC National Organizer Mary Ellen Douglas said that "No matter what good there possibly is in Bill C-13, no amount of good can cover the evil that's in there with the sanction of destructive research on human embryos." LifeSite Daily News, the internet arm of Interim Publishing, said that those working to defeat C-13 "have been deprived by the statement of critically needed active support from the leader of the Canadian Bishops‚ organization."

In a recent letter to Bishop Brendan O'Brien, the new head of the CCCB, CLC wrote, "There is an important difference between saying that a bill is deeply flawed but includes much that is positive‚ and saying it is inherently unjust and cannot be supported in conscience." The letter continued that C-13 sanctions "without restrictions, cloning, germline alteration, commercial surrogate mothers‚ and embryo experimentation and the creation of embryos only for experiments." CLC advised that "If C-13 is ever ratified by the Senate, Canada will have adopted the materialistic and utilitarian idea that human beings are things that can be manufactured, bought, sold, experimented upon and killed at will." We respectfully advised Bishop O'Brien, "The last thing that our Senate needs is the appearance of equivocation in the guidance it receives from the shepherds of the Church."

In October, MP Garry Breitkreuz (CA, Yorkton-Melville) demonstrated why he won the 2002 Joseph P. Borowski Award, given annually by CLC to the politician who does the most on behalf of the cause of life. This year, his private member's motion, M-83 was debated and, unfortunately, defeated. It would have required Parliament to study whether abortion is medically necessary and explore the health risks to women who have abortions. It was a shock to many pro-life MPs that this tiny incremental step to protect women's health was not supported by their colleagues. Three weeks after M-83 was defeated, Breitkreuz introduced another motion, M-482, calling on the government to introduce a Woman's Right to Know Act. He said that "The majority of MPs in the House ... refused to support my motion calling for the Health Committee to study all the risks women take by having an abortion so the next logical step was to make sure that laws are in place to guarantee women are fully informed of all the risks by their doctors before they decide to abort their baby." M-482 states: "That, in the opinion of this House, the government should introduce a bill entitled Woman's Right to Know Act that would guarantee that all women considering an abortion would be given complete information by their physician about all the risks of the procedure before being referred for an abortion, and provide penalties for physicians who perform an abortion without the informed consent of the mother or perform an abortion that is not medically necessary for the purpose of maintaining health, preventing disease or diagnosing or treating an injury, illness or disability in accordance with the Canada Health Act."

Breitkreuz said that the only guarantee that women are fully informed of all the risks in having an abortion is to ensure "appropriate penalties in the Act for any abortion provider that performs an abortion without the informed consent." With more than 100,000 abortions committed annually in Canada, the healthcare system is burdened by not only the cost of the abortion itself but the health effects suffered afterwards; women who have abortions are at increased risk of breast cancer, suicide, infertility, psychiatric problems, uterine perforations, bacterial infections and pelvic inflammatory disease. Women who have abortions also put future children at risk by increasing the likelihood of pre-term and/or low birth-weight babies which increases the chances of having children with a disability such as cerebral palsy." Breitkreuz said that "Every one of these women have a right to know and that's why Canadian women need a Women's Right to Know Act." M-482 does not criminalize abortion. It does not defund abortion. It does not make getting an abortion more difficult to obtain. It does, however, ensure that women have pertinent and important information about the health risks of abortion to themselves and possible future children.For every other "health" procedure, doctors discuss possible side-effects with their patients. What is so special about abortion that it should be exempted from this common sense practice.

We were proud to be a part of the wonderful national pro-life conference November 6-8 in Edmonton, Alberta. Co-sponsored by Campaign Life Coalition, Life Canada and the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and hosted by the Alberta Pro-Life Alliance, the theme of the conference was "Silent No More." Fittingly, between featured events post-abortive women gave brief but extremely moving testimonies. If anyone has any doubt that abortion harms women, they should listen to the stories of women who refuse to suffer silently any more. The featured speakers addressed educational, cultural and political issues. We are very thankful to MPs Pat O'Brien and Stockwell Day who both spoke on applying Christian principles in politics. Keynote speaker Dr. David C. Reardon of the Elliot Institute, an expert on the deleterious effects of abortion on women, provided a summary of the many studies on increased health problems women experience after they have an abortion. We were very pleased with the youth contingent, which made up about one-third of the nearly 500 total registrants. This is not just our future but an incredibly re-invigorating presence right now. As someone said after the conference, "I get the feeling that things are beginning to change."

On Nov. 4, the sixth committee of the UN General Assembly passed by one vote - 80-79 with 15 abstentions - a procedural motion that deferred the discussion (and decision) for a convention on human cloning for two years. We have been involved at the UN cloning discussions since 2002 and found that since then two camps have emerged - those in favour of a partial ban on reproductive cloning only, but who support research or so-called therapeutic cloning, and those in favour of a more comprehensive ban on all forms of human cloning. The final decision was to agree to disagree as the UN decided to postpone a vote and offered a two year moratorium. The Organization of Islamic Countries introduced a procedural motion to defer the matter as the group said it needed more time to study the issue. Supporters of the partial ban quickly backed the OIC motion, a sure sign that they didn't think they had the votes for their very limited restrictions.

As I have already noted, CLC was very involved in the cloning debate at the UN - both in New York and Ottawa. CLC International Affairs Officer Samantha Singson lobbied delegates at the UN in September and October, informing them of the scientific and ethical issues involved. In Canada, we urged MPs to write the Canadian delegation to urge it to oppose the partial ban at the UN and numerous MPs from the Canadian Alliance, Liberal and Progressive Conservative parties did so. In Parliament, the Canadian Alliance Health Critic Rob Merrifield asked Health Minister Anne McLellan why Canada was supporting the "weaker" resolution. To our surprise she said Canada would vote in favour of Costa Rica's resolution. However, the very next day, the day of the vote, Canada abstained on the procedural motion to defer a decision for two years. Thus once again the wishes of an elected Parliament are ignored by a group of federal bureaucrats who promote their own anti-life agendas and ignore the orders of those elected by the Canadian people. If it would have supported a commitment to consider a total ban as the health minister assured Parliament and the country, the deferral would have been defeated and the Costa Rican resolution, in all likelihood, would have passed. We will be at the UN and in Ottawa to remind the government of its promise to support a total ban on cloning when the issue comes up again in the General Assembly in 2005.

We are often asked, why do we spend so much energy monitoring the United Nations? It is a good and fair question and one that is easy to answer: because some anti-life groups at the UN are pushing a radical pro-abortion agenda and too often, Canada is at the centre of this advocacy. Recently, it was discovered that the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) released a document, "Unwanted Pregnancy and Unsafe Abortion," which called for abortion to be made available without restriction to all women, especially adolescent girls, and for all abortions to be paid for by the government. The 2002 document also called for "redress" to women who have been "denied" abortion access 'that should be made available to them." There is no definition of redress, but clearly UNESCO thinks that it is a terrible injustice for women to have any barrier to killing their unborn child. Furthermore, the document demonstrates a breezy indifference to existing national abortion laws with suggestions on how to contravene them. For instance, UNESCO suggests that in Bangladesh where abortion is illegal, "menstrual regulation" is not and thus advocates chemical abortions up to eight weeks not as abortion but a form of "family planning." It adds that the abortion law requires proof of pregnancy which is "virtually impossible" to provide after the "use of menstrual regulation." We have yet to discover Canada's role in the formulation of this document but we will continue to dig. Furthermore, you can be guaranteed that without CLC at the UN - and the follow-up reporting of LifeSite Daily News and The Interim - this sort of abortion advocacy would be unknown to the Canadian public. At the same time, we work with delegates from all over the world at the UN to counter this radical agenda and have, over the years, developed mutually respectful and beneficial relationships.

Maurice Strong has promised he will advise his friend and soon-to-be Prime Minister Paul Martin, for "free." We're tempted to say that is about what his advice is worth, but Strong's ideas are no joking matter. Strong, the senior advisor to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, is a leading advocate of one-world global governance. He advocates a radical environmentalism that is associated with people and movements that advocated depopulating the world. He has indicated support for China's brutal one-child policy and limiting family size to protect the earth's natural resources from the encroachment of man. Lastly, he was involved in the 2002 summit to develop a one-world religion that adopts as centrepieces environmental activism and collective governance (one-world government). With advisors like Strong, Paul Martin's vaunted position as a leader from the more conservative side of the Liberal Party should be seriously questioned. Strong's views place him firmly on the left and if successfully implemented (anywhere - at the international or national level) pose a direct threat to traditional religion, national sovereignty and human life.

On October 16, the Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties announced that they would merge; the process has begun and by mid-December, both parties are expected to ratify the deal brokered by their respective leaders, Peter MacKay and Stephen Harper. We are uninterested in the intraparty bickering or even partisan politics, but we remain involved in any process which allows grassroots Canadians a greater say in how they are governed. We hope that conservative-minded Canadians will get involved in the process of picking a new leader and selecting candidates at the individual constituency level to ensure that the concerns of pro-life and pro-family voters are heard. That said, we were not surprised when the day after the deal was announced, some media outlets called on social conservatives (namely pro-life and pro-family voters) to "compromise" to ensure the electability of the new Conservative Party. As The Interim noted in its November editorial, all too often compromise means that social conservatives are expected to vote for a "conservative" party but will get nothing in return. It does not have to be this way; indeed, it shouldn't. David Frum, the Canadian ex-pat returned to the pages of the National Post on October 17 to write about the merger, urged it to offer something to all Canadian conservatives - economic conservatives, social conservatives and conservative populists. Two weeks later, Mark Milke, a former BC representative of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation wrote in the Post that there is room for social conservatives in the new party and that contrary to conventional wisdom, social conservatives are not a political liability; Milke noted that in B.C., arguably the most socially liberal province in the country, the Canadian Alliance under pro-life and pro-family leader Stockwell Day garnered almost 50% of the vote and nearly toppled homosexual MP Svend Robinson in Burnaby-Douglas. The Tories hold most of their seats in Atlantic Canada, probably the most socially conservative part of the country. These facts get in the way of the socially liberal agenda of most backroom strategists and political pundits who espouse the view that courting pro-life votes is a guarantee a party will lose the election. But considering such arguments to the contrary, are backroom elites substituting their own pro-abortion biases for realistic political analysis? We hope that pro-life conservatives who support the merger of the two centre-right parties will become actively involved; if the new party eschews social conservatives, will we have ourselves to blame? Not if we work within the party from the beginning, endeavour to get a pro-life platform and pro-life candidates in every riding. Please renew your party memberships to ensure that you will be able to take part in this opportunity to guide the direction of this new conservative party.

It seems that a fair number of sitting Liberal MPs are considering retirement or are looking forward to various patronage appointments. This means that pro-life Liberals have an excellent opportunity to get involved at the constituency level and help elect pro-life Liberal candidates. We have always advocated a non-partisan approach to ending abortion, arguing that the best chance of getting pro-life legislation on the table and passed is through a multi-party effort. We hope that the already sizeable contingent of pro-life Liberals grows and we can assist this if - and only if - we get involved. If you support the Liberal Party, purchase a membership, get involved in the candidate selection process and support pro-life candidates seeking the party's nomination for the next federal election. For more information on how to do this, please contact Campaign Life Coalition at 1-800-730-5358 or (416) 204-9749.

On October 24, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition held a symposium in Toronto featuring three experts in their respective fields. Speaking first was Ruth Enns, a Manitoba freelance writer whose book A Voice Unheard is the definitive book on the Tracy Latimer case. She said that the media's bias in favour of Tracy's father and killer, Robert Latimer, manifested itself in a myriad of ways, all of which created sympathy for the perpetrator rather than the victim of the crime. Media coverage dehumanized Tracy and ignored pertinent facts about the true state of her being and capabilities. Enns said that too many Canadians project their fears of being disabled and make value judgements about the worthiness of the lives lived by people with disabilities. After lunch, Ian Dowbiggin, a professor of history at the University of PEI and author of A Merciful End, the definitive history of the euthanasia movement in the United States, spoke about the connections between the advocates of euthanasia and the eugenics movement. Professor Dowbiggin said radical movements such as those promoting euthanasia, eugenics, abortion, birth control and homosexuality are all motivated by a deep hatred of our Christian tradition and seek to overturn traditional moral teaching. He provided a stunning list of individuals who had one foot in each movement, including Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, a noted eugenicist and abortion advocate. Professor Dowbiggin said that his research discovered a little reported fact: that Sanger actively supported the American Euthanasia Society. Finally, Wesley Smith addressed the audience and tailored his talk to current events. Earlier that week, Terri Schindler-Schiavo, a disabled and non-verbal Florida woman had feeding tubes re-connected by order of the state's governor, Jeb Bush. Earlier this year, Terri's husband had won a decade-long battle to deny her nutrition and hydration and on October 15, her feeding tubes were disconnected. Smith, author of books on euthanasia and bioethics, told the Toronto audience that the Schiavo case is but the latest high profile incident of doctors or family members making the value judgement of what life is worth living. He said the trend to deny simple food and water to disabled or comatose patients is nothing less than bigotry. EPC Executive Director Alex Schadenberg said that the symposium was a great success and he was pleased that the roomful of participants from many professions - doctors, nurses, journalists, community support agencies, nursing homes, academia, right-to-life groups - had the opportunity to hear three experts in their fields.

We are beginning to take orders for An Apostle for Life, the biography of former Manitoba NDP cabinet minister Joseph Borowski, who took his fight on behalf of the unborn in this country all the way to the Supreme Court. This book by Lianne Laurence has been in the works for many years and finally readers will have the opportunity to understand Joe's life and struggle a little better. You can pre-order your copy of An Apostle for Life for just $19.95 plus shipping and handling by calling Emma at 1-800-730-5358 or (416) 204-9749.

Yours for life
Jim Hughes
National President