By Paul Tuns One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger by Matthew Yglesias (Portfolio, $37, 267 pages) Matthew Yglesias is a policy wonk and political commentator for the left-wing Vox website. His new book, One Billion Americans, could have been a good and important contribution to American discourse, adding to the dearth of serious, or at least ambitious, ideas. Yglesias makes [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell When he said he was a convert, several who heard him turned away. Maybe they thought a convert was a cross between a convict and a pervert. “I converted to Catholicism a year ago,” he explained, as they dispersed. A cradle Catholic, I’ve always been interested in conversion stories. I asked about his. “I was [...]
Talk Turkey Josie Luetke I recently attended presentations by Rebecca Oas, the associate director of research for the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam), on how the United Nations misrepresents data in order to advance their anti-life and anti-family agenda. She pointed out the U.N.’s habit of confusing lower prevalence rates of contraception usage with lack of access when [...]
Mary Eberstadt Marking the 50th anniversary of Humanae vitae, the Archdiocese of Toronto sponsored a one-day conference to reflect upon Pope St. Paul VI’s encyclical letter. On Nov. 10, about 125 people gathered for the conference at University of St. Michael’s College. Cardinal Thomas Collins began the day with Mass which was followed by a series of talks given [...]
At the Faithful to God’s Design: Humanae Vitaeat 50 conference put on by the Archdiocese of Toronto on Nov. 10, Maria Wolfs, a staff endocrinologist at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto and an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, compared how estrogen sends signals to a woman’s ovaries to the way a thermostat will turn the heat on when the temperature [...]
Editors’ note: These are excerpts from the encyclical Humane Vitae. God’s Loving Design Married love particularly reveals its true nature and nobility when we realize that it takes its origin from God, who “is love,” the Father “from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.” Marriage, then, is far from being the effect of chance or the result of [...]
Catholics and other people of goodwill have had numerous occasions to be confused by the statements of Pope Francis on various moral issues. Too often, however, they have relied on the media filter and not the pontiff’s actual statements. Asked by journalists about the Zika virus and fetal deformities, Pope Francis is said to have given his okay to contraception to avoid [...]
Melinda Gates has been promoting new forms of contraception through her billionaire husband's charity, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Silphium was a plant in classical antiquity commonly used for seasoning and medication, as well as a method of birth control. Though it’s highly debated what happened to this extinct plant, many academics believe it became extinct due to over-harvesting. Our [...]
Dr. Chantal Barry, a physician at Westglen Medical Centre in Calgary, is refusing to prescribe the birth control pill to patients. On June 24, while attending an appointment with her gynecologist, Joan Chand’oiseau saw a sign at the front desk of the walk-in clinic stating that “the physician on duty today will not prescribe the birth control pill.” The sign is put [...]
Tomorrow there will be a Solemn Mass "in thanksgiving to God and in honour of the Very Reverend Monsignor Vincent Foy" to mark the 75th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. Cardinal Thomas Collins will celebrate Mass at St. Lawrence the Martyr Catholic Church at 2210 Lawrence East, Scarborough. 75 years in the priesthood is a rare celebration. A man needs to [...]
Three family doctors at an Ottawa health clinic are being criticized for refusing to prescribe birth control to their patients. The controversy started when Kate D. went to CareMedics Elmvale Acres walk-in clinic to get a prescription. She was surprised when the receptionist handed her a letter by the attending physician, Dr. Edmond Kyrillos, stating that he only provides Natural Family Planning [...]
On Jan. 30, the Ottawa Citizen reported that three local family physicians were refusing to prescribe birth control pills. Not so long ago, the great majority of Canadians would have responded with an amazed: “So what?” Not so the anonymous woman who brought this story to public attention. She was incensed when, in response to her request for a birth control prescription [...]
The Supreme Court will decide whether the Obamacare contraception mandate can be forced on employers. According to the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which was largely upheld by the Supreme Court in June 2012, contraception must be included by insurance policies. Religiously affiliated non-profit businesses such as Catholic hospitals are currently exempted from the contraception mandate. For-profit businesses are still required to fund [...]
A contraceptive touted by its makers as 100 per cent effective was not able to prevent the pregnancies of almost 600 women living in the United Kingdom. Implanon, issued 11 years ago by MSD, is a subdermal contraceptive which is implanted under a woman’s skin and releases progesterone to stop ovulation. Although it was supposed to prevent conception for three [...]
Q&A with Craig Carter Editor’s note: Joseph Jalsevac, a summer intern at The Interim, spoke to Dr. Craig Carter, an ordained minister in the Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches of Canada and a professor of Religious Studies at Tyndale University College in Toronto, about contraception. Carter regularly writes and lectures on Christian sexual ethics in the modern world. The Interim: [...]