Bioethics
Written on 17 Apr, 1987 at 12:18 in
Bioethics, Society & Culture | Author:
Frank Kennedy
I’m reminded of a story circulating around Ottawa: A prisoner in Kingston Pen writes a letter to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney complaining about how difficult it has been for him to get parole and he gets a letter back from the PM’s office saying, “…I have taken
this matter up personally with Prime Minister Mulroney, and he promises to improve postal service in your area…”
It’s the same situation with birth control clinics in schools – they want ... (Continue reading)
Written on 17 Apr, 1987 at 12:09 in
Bioethics, Society & Culture | Author:
A bill, prohibiting Arizona schools from either distributing contraceptives, or from referring students to agencies that dispense birth control without parental consent, was approved by the State House of Representatives on Thursday March 13, 1987.
At present no Arizona high schools dispense contraceptives, but the co-sponsors of the bill, Lela Steffey and Jim White, object to school clinics referring students to other sources. Moreover, Lela Steffey explained that she thought the school clinics (following the example ... (Continue reading)
Written on 17 Apr, 1987 at 9:23 in
Abortion, Bioethics, Marriage and Family, Pro-Life, Religion | Author:
Alphonse de Valk
On March 10, 1987, the Vatican reaffirmed the special character of marriage and the dignity of human life before birth in a new document on genetic engineering. The document, Instruction on Respect of Human Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation, was published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith after wide consultation with many experts around the world. It reaffirms, perfects and consolidates into an organic whole, scattered teaching on various ... (Continue reading)
Written on 17 Mar, 1987 at 7:48 in
Bioethics, Motherhood | Author:
Interim staff
In a precedent-setting decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a substantial damage award to a young girl whose birth defects were caused by her mother’s use of spermicidal jelly. The decision is said to have alarmed pharmaceutical companies, some of whom are in the courts fighting law suits brought by women injured by various brand-name Inter Uterine Devices (IUDs)
Ortho Pharmaceutical Corporation has been ordered to pay Katie Wells and her parents $4.7 million (U.S) to ... (Continue reading)
Written on 10 Mar, 1987 at 9:28 in
Bioethics, Marriage and Family, Society & Culture | Author:
While no one denies that AIDS education is vitally important if we are to halt the spread of the disease, many are questioning the assumptions on which AIDS prevention is based and the questions being raised are serious indeed.
Firstly, it is wrong to base education campaigns on the assumption that all the facts are known on how this virus is transmitted. We cannot as yet dismiss the incidences of non-sexual transmission (through saliva and so ... (Continue reading)
Written on 10 Mar, 1987 at 8:18 in
Abortion, Bioethics | Author:
Interim staff.
Late last year, the media heralded the arrival of a newly-discovered chemical abortion pill, and followed up with further news that the pill could also be used as a convenient, once-a-month method of birth control.
In fact, the RU 486 pill has been public knowledge since early last year when American pro-life newspapers, ALL About Issues and National Right to Life News, published lengthy articles on it. The Interim also reported briefly on the pill in April, 1986.
RU ... (Continue reading)
Written on 10 Mar, 1987 at 8:08 in
Abortion, Bioethics, Marriage and Family | Author:
Father Paul Marx, the energetic founder and director of Human Life International, spent the first week of February in southern Ontario, passing on to audiences in several cities his observations on world-wide anti-family policies.
He sees an inseparable connection between the widespread access to contraception and increased rates of abortion in the world. Father Marx stresses that there is not one exception in the 68 countries he has visited and studied. Today, he says, the most widespread form of ... (Continue reading)
Written on 10 Mar, 1987 at 7:44 in
Bioethics, Society & Culture | Author:
Sabina McLuhan
This article contains explicit descriptions of some sexual practices which will, no doubt, be offensive to many readers. We, too, find it distasteful. Nevertheless, we feel that our readers have the right to know precisely what is being discussed in the AIDS education debate.
When U.S. Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop M.D., issued his Report on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in late October, it received immediate approval from the national media in the United States, and wide ... (Continue reading)
Written on 1 Feb, 1987 at 8:51 in
Abortion, Bioethics, Issues, Politics, Society & Culture | Author:
Winifride Preswich
The Law Reform Commission of Canada has issued a recently-completed paper on “Options for Abortion Policy Reform.” This study is the first step in a programme which will also include issues such as embryo experimentation, infanticide, genetic screening and in-vitro fertilization. It is expected that, by the winter of 1987, the Commission will issue “a report containing specific law reform proposals on abortion and the other issues referred to above.”
If our pre-born babies are not to be ... (Continue reading)
Written on 1 Feb, 1987 at 8:24 in
Abortion, Bioethics, Issues, Pro-Life, Society & Culture | Author:
Alphonse de Valk An incredible sex education and pro-contraception propaganda crusade is sweeping North America and Great Britain as the result of the AIDS epidemic.
In the United States, the Congress-chartered National Research Council has called for free condoms wherever “teenage boys congregate.” It claims there’s “little evidence” for the “view” that contraceptives promote “early sexual activity.” The panel of “experts” believe “that the strategy for reducing early pregnancy must be the encouragement of diligent contraceptive use by all sexually active ... (Continue reading)
Written on 28 Jan, 1987 at 8:14 in
Bioethics, Human rights, Politics | Author:
Sabina McLuhan
Court-ordered contraceptive sterilization of the mentally-handicapped should become unknown in Canada following a Supreme Court of Canada ruling in late October.
Judge Gerard La Forest wrote that such cases should be approached with “the utmost caution,” adding later in the judgement that “it is difficult to imagine a case in which non-therapeutic sterilization could possibly be of benefit to the person on behalf of whom a court purports to act…And how are we to weigh the best interests of a ... (Continue reading)
Written on 13 Dec, 1986 at 7:10 in
Abortion, Bioethics | Author:
Grief group for stillborn
Winnipeg – Social worker Susan Dolinski and nursing director Jackie Phils have formed a “grief group” at Women’s Hospital in Winnipeg to help parents grieving the loss of a newborn baby.
Instead of being told to forget it and try again, bereaved parents are allowed to see the dead infant, hold it, name it, and take home its baby clothes. The group is believed to be the first in Manitoba, following in the footsteps ... (Continue reading)
Written on 13 Nov, 1986 at 6:32 in
Abortion, Bioethics, Marriage and Family, Society & Culture | Author:
Sue Hierlihy Four Private Members’ bills to amend Section 251 of the Criminal Code have received first reading in the House of Commons in the new session of Parliament that began September 30. All previous items of Private Members Business relating to abortion and the protection of the unborn child died on the Order Paper when the House prorogued at the end of August. Two of the new bills and a Private Members’ Motion seek greater protection for the unborn child, while ... (Continue reading)
Written on 13 Nov, 1986 at 6:32 in
Abortion, Bioethics, Euthanasia | Author:
Winifride Prestwich
A discussion paper given in Winnipeg at the Annual Directors’ Meeting of Campaign Life Canada – October 1986.
Dr. Everett Koop warned us of the Slippery Slope and he predicted that abortion, by taking away the value of the life of an unborn child, would lead to the diminishing value of all human life. Three and a half centuries ago the clergyman-poet John Donne said the same thing: “No man is an island…any man’s death diminishes me because I ... (Continue reading)
Written on 10 Oct, 1986 at 11:41 in
Bioethics | Author:
Interim staff Doctors and ethicists say that unborn babies have “moral value,” and predict that babies in late stages of gestation will be given legal rights in Canada.
A panel of medical, legal and ethics experts discussed the “ethical dilemmas” raised by today’s medical advances at the September convention of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons.
The case under discussion was that of a woman, 32 weeks pregnant, dying of lung cancer, who refused to have her baby delivered surgically while she was ... (Continue reading)
