Comments Reveal Real Workings

To the Editor:    
According to a recent issue of The Globe & Mail, Supreme Court Justice Antonio Lamer made a very interesting statement in favor of life.

At the Law and Contemporary Affairs conference held recently at the University of Toronto, Mr. Lamer declared that he voted to strike down Canada’s former abortion law in the Morgentaler case, even though he was personally opposed to the practice. Apparently he thought a majority of Canadians were against making it a criminal offence.

If this is the way the Supreme Court makes its decisions, the whole system of justice is in disrepute.

Dennis Alsop,
Mississauga, ON
 

Interim wins praise

To the Editor:   
I received the January issue of The Interim. It is, as always, outstanding. Please begin a subscription for 1998.

Judie Brown,
President, American Life League
Stafford, Virginia   
 

Choice and free will

To the Editor: 
I feel I must respond to the January letter of Mary Agbakli. It is true we all have a right to our opinions, but we do not all have the right to express them publicly, for we don’t necessarily have all the facts - as the letter writer noted in reference to Linda Gibbons.

The opinions of some elites have led the country to war against the unborn child.

As to Mary Agbalki’s remark about God giving us the “choice” for life, this is untrue. God gave us the free will to choose life, with the command, thou shall not kill.  

Joseph Jeffrey.
Toronto     
 

Widest understanding

To the Editor:   
I think The Interim is the best of what is out there today. God bless you all. I think you are the only newspaper that would publish the following point.

We are all pro-life - no one has the right to take another’s life be it by abortion or euthanasia. On the other hand, we have those who are involved in “laboratory” pregnancies (in-vitro) and now, perhaps even cloning.   

This leads to death of some babies through abortion and giving life to others in the laboratory. It seems to be a terrible contradiction to me. Then we have street kids and prostitutes - what of them? Where is the respect and dignity of life for them? When we pass these human beings on the street, do we think of them as in great need of our compassion? We all start off as innocents - the streets of the cities are full of them.

There are many people who want a chance at life. Let us extend our pro-life attitude to all.

Evelyn Armelli,
Toronto     
 

How to explain

To the Editor:
On Jan. 28, 1998, I put a pro-life poster in our front window, to mark with sadness the 10-year anniversary of the striking down of the abortion law in Canada. The poster said “Take my hand, not my life.”   

Our 14-year-old son, who has Down’s Syndrome, read the poster. “What’s that for?” he asked. I said that babies inside their moms are not protected by law in Canada - that they can be killed any time, and that we need a law to protect these babies. He looked at me, thoughtful and confused, and fell silent.

How do you explain this Canadian shame to your children and grandchildren? How do I explain it to this trusting young man?

Jane Wright,
Chatham, Ontario
 

Tip of iceberg

To the Editor:
Last night when I tried to sleep, the lines of the following hymn kept going through my mind. The hymn goes, “Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord? I have heard You calling in the night.” The following is what I heard.

 Abortion - the tip of the iceberg. We are on the Titanic, drowning in a sea of innocent blood. We can only survive in a lifeboat of preserving life from conception to natural death, allowing God to pilot our lifeboat

Persons left onboard the Titanic are weighed down by greed, self-gratification and the lack of self-control. They are egged on by leaders whose interests are self-serving, power hungry and controlling.

Laura Piatkowski,
Brampton, ON.     
 

Forgiveness brings healing

To the Editor:
Regarding the recent letter from a mother who was anguished by her son’s homosexuality, I offer the following. We are all born into sin. Is the person who steals above the liar? Is the adulterer above one who is involved in child pornography? If we sin and God forgives sin, we are free. One sin is no better than another.

We are all capable of evil deeds. There is no true homosexual, only a person involved in sin. The sexual sins have always had a great lure in people’s lives, and this one is no different. The lie involved in homosexuality is that they can’t change.

But that is why Jesus appeared on earth - to forgive sins. To the woman’s son, I would say, you are not born this way. We are born free. Begin to fight the real enemy and get help. Don’t stop until you hear Jesus. He will deliver you.

Carol Snelgrove,
Oakville, ON   
 

A-G wake-up call

To the Editor:
I am very distressed that the Ontario Attorney-General’s office continues to harass Linda Gibbons.     

Under the previous government, the Conservative party was very much opposed to the hard-handed tactics of the NDP. Now, we have judges growing increasingly frustrated with Linda because she refuses to speak during her court appearances.

This grandmother has spent the better part of three years in prison. What, besides the cost of human suffering, will the tab be for Ontario taxpayers? The province must stop this nonsense. Get on with it Mr. Harnick, and remember your own mother.

John van Ekelenburg,
Bracebridge, ON
 

Motherhood revisited

To the Editor:
I found one of the articles in the January issue - “Time to recognize motherhood as a career” by Dr. Ed Napke, to be a simplistic solution to a complicated problem. In addition, I thought some of the letters which expressed important ideas nevertheless lacked insight.

Like Dr. Napke, I am a doctor, but unlike him, I am a mother of eight children.

Many years ago as a convent girl on retreat I consulted a wise priest with regard to my choice of a medical career. He told me that motherhood was a higher calling, but the church needed women doctors badly. Now, having grown old, I realize how very wise he was.

I registered in a course of combined science and medicine at a Catholic college, but there I was met not only with opposition but with sarcasm. However, I persisted and after taking time off to have my family, I returned and eventually became a staff member of a university science department.         

My hours were regular and I was happy raising children and doing research. There was, however, a feeling of loneliness. I was not in “solidarity” with anyone. There was no one to go to for advice. There was no one to count on. Finally, when the children were bigger, I decided that competing for ever diminishing grants was not worth it, so I opened my own medical practice.

There I found that the hand that rocks the cradle does not rule the world. In fact it does not even “bull” the world. The world works on the philosophy that “might is right.”

Very few of us are going back to the family farm, and in the city salaries are set either directly or indirectly by international corporations. You are lucky to have a job, but often it is a job that limits the size of your family, the size of your house and where you can live. You also live under constant threat of downsizing. Corporations do not have to please mothers but are run by directors who have to please investors.

Dr. Napke calls for education in parenthood and I thoroughly agree with him. However, with the economy of the average family being so fragile, I think every woman owes it to her family to be able to fall back on some profession or trade. This world is different from that of our grandparents and we do not wish to discourage participation in all facets of life by one half of humanity.

In addition it is about time that Christian education produced more leaders and stood behind them. At one time, Europe was flooded with great Christian art and now, in the movies and television, we are flooded with something else. When I was young we were advised to keep away from the movies. At that time, movies were just starting to become important and we shunned them. We should have been down in Hollywood doing something about them.

Women usually live longer than men and a glance at Canadian statistics shows the vast majority of women over 65 are poor indeed. Will their children look after them? The children are often struggling themselves or out of work and frankly many don’t care. These are women who stayed home, looked after the house and family and they have ended up on government assistance. 

Turning to the letters to the editor in the January Interim, one correspondent complained of a lack of leadership, especially among spiritual leaders. Years ago, something called Christendom existed, but it’s gone now and so is the time when spiritual leaders stood out among the largely uneducated populations. We are now entering the time when the laity must take on more leadership.

This brings me to the Prime Minister, who is to say the least, not a leader in the pro-life movement. But look a little further back. He was one of something like 19 children, of whom about half died as babies. Perhaps he thinks other women should not suffer as his mother did. Perhaps the present low birth rate in Quebec is a consequence of women having to bear too many children.

I’m all for large families if the parents want them, but if they do not, there is natural family planning and abstinence. One letter stated that women should not have abortions because they can say no to sexual relations. Sadly, this is not a possibility for many women. For the worst examples, look at the Third World where the extramarital affairs of men are held to be of no concern to their wives. These are becoming the saddest places in the world because of sexually transmitted disease, especially AIDS.

Can we turn things around?

Lyn Sutherland, MD
Don Mills, ON
 

The Interim welcomes letters and submissions. Both may be subject to editing. Please send to interim@lifesite.net