Representative Nancy Pelosi of California became the new minority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. The San Francisco Democrat has a 100 per cent National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League rating, supports partial-birth abortion and same-sex marriage, and opposes a ban on human cloning and embryonic stem cell research ... Jesse Quackenbush, a losing representative candidate in Texas, announced he is quitting the Democratic party: "They say they are an open party and they are accepting of anyone who wants to be a member of their party and then they have a viable candidate in myself and actively campaign against me because of my stance against abortion" ... Windsor Star's Michael Taube: "The left-wing in the U.S. has finally and mercifully been muted for a couple of years, and Bush will have the ability to introduce a fiscally and socially conservative political agenda" ... Now that the Republicans control the House, Senate and presidency, the chances of a partial-birth abortion ban are good. Senator Rick Santorum (R.-Pennsylvania) said, "I think we'll do it in the first six months of the new session" ... Financial Times reports Senator Sam Brownback (R.-Kansas) intends to introduce legislation next year that will ban all forms of human cloning. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer says that a total ban on human cloning is a top priority for President George W. Bush.

UNFPA spokesman warns that the "extraordinary" and "shocking" number of pregnancy-related deaths in Afghanistan is related to a shortage of "family planning and emergency obstetric services" ... Ahmad Khatif Muhammad, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims, insists that the proposed new Kenyan constitution defends life from the moment of conception: "The new constitution should not give licence to those who wish to terminate the life of the unborn child" ... Britain's National Health Service distributed 201,000 prescriptions of the abortifacient morning-after pill in 2001-02, a decrease of 15 per cent from the preceding year, in part because the MAP became available from pharmacists without a doctor's prescription ... A 77-year-old man suffering from cancer became the first British citizen to take his own life at Dignitas, an assisted-suicide clinic in Zurich, Switzerland. Critics of the practice call it "death tourism" ... The Canberra Times reports that Australian euthanasia advocate Dr. Philip Nitschke said concerted acts of civil disobedience will test the country's laws on assisted suicide. His scheme includes having 20 people build portable carbon monoxide generators, with one participant using it to commit suicide: "Are the other 19 responsible for that one person's actions?" he asked.

N.B. Premier Bernard Lord says he is not interested in the federal Tory leadership. Rogers Cable CEO John Tory also announces that he is not seeking the PC leadership. There is increased pressure on pro-life Ontario cabinet minister Jim Flaherty to run so that the race is not contended by only socially moderate, Atlantic Canadian MPs ... Socially conservative Randy Thorsteinson, former leader of the provincial Social Credit party, is the interim leader of the newly created Alberta Alliance ... Former New York city mayor Rudy Giuliani was in Toronto, helping the Sunnybrook and Women's Foundation raise $1 million for, among other causes, "reproductive health."

In a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, former U.S. surgeon-general C. Everett Koop and John F. Kilner of the Centre for Bioethics and Human Dignity (among others), say that grappling with "often-neglected ethical issues raised by research cloning" is meant "not to hold back science, but to encourage it to proceed in an ethical fashion. Our society must not subjugate basic ethical considerations to scientific and medical progress, lest we all become subjects mastered by our own technological prowess" ... The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons says adult stem cell technology "has the potential to revolutionize the practice of medicine." ... The Australian parliament passed legislation allowing research on 70,000 "spare" embryonic humans.

Family Research Council President Kenneth Connor on liberal opposition to a number of President Bush's appointees: "What NOW and other pro-aborts really believe is that regardless of how well-qualified one may otherwise be for a government post that has the power to influence abortion policy, that person is not qualified to serve unless he or she endorses the notion that a woman has an unalienable right to choose to kill her innocent unborn child" ... Or is at all about gay rights? Homosexualist news website datalounge.com says, "Voters are finding in many races, a candidate's position on a gay civil rights issue can be an accurate indication of just how conservative or progressive these politicians are."