Ruth Institute Blog

by Carolyn Moynihan

Marriage and family advocacy groups have greeted with enthusiasm a Canadian court decision upholding the country’s ban on polygamy, published yesterday.

British Columbia Supreme Court Chief Justice, Robert Bauman, has ruled that the government of Canada may continue to prohibit polygamy because, although the law does impinge on the right to freedom of religion, that harm is outweighed by the harms that polygamy inflicts on women and children, and to the institution of monogamous marriage. “There is no such thing as so-called ‘good polygamy’,” said Bauman. Read more…

by Barbara Kay

The Royal Society of Canada recommends legalising euthanasia

An anti-euthanasia protest in France in January. Photo: REUTERS/Jacky Naegele Read more…

by Marcus Roberts

A couple of related pieces today that both underline a theme that has been commonplace at Demography is Destiny over the past few months.  If you have to ask what that theme is then you obviously have not been reading with the necessary assiduity and I am not going to help you. Read more…

by Patrick B. Craine

EDMONTON, Alberta, September 12, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An Alberta judge has let a woman who strangled her newborn son walk free by arguing that Canada’s absence of a law on abortion signals that Canadians “sympathize” with the mother. Read more…

Charlie Butts – OneNewsNow -

“Baby Joseph,” brought to America from Canada after doctors refused to provide treatment so he could go home, is doing well.

Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life tells OneNewsNow infant Joseph Maraachli was successfully treated at a St. Louis hospital.

“Baby Joseph is now free from all tubes, machines, ventilators, and assistance,” says Pavone. “He is breathing on his own just like you and me, and he has been taken home. He is with his parents in their apartment in Windsor, Canada.”

In Canada, the child would have been sent home to die, but Pavone says Baby Joseph defied the “culture of death” and is alive today. Priests for Life is handling medical expenses for the family.

More photos of Baby Joseph’s trip home

Found here.

from WinnipegFreePress.com:
The last time Canadians had a debate about the definition of marriage, it was over whether gays and lesbians had a constitutional right to marry.

In the end, the courts decided they did.

Now, as a British Columbia judge weighs whether polygamy should be decriminalized, advocates on both sides of the debate are pointing to the legalization of same-sex marriage to bolster their claims.

Keep reading…

by Mariette Ulrich

by Mary Kochan

Imagine the crushing judicial power of a modern nation coming down upon you, trying you, sentencing you, and then planning your execution – all while the charges against you remain secret.  You might recall that as the plot of Franz Kafka’s paranoiac novel, The Trial, the protagonist of which is a 30-year-old bank clerk. Under the spell of Kafka’s masterful telling, the reader is left feeling almost as though the horror of the sentence pales in comparison to simply not knowing why. Read more…

Why not keep the news a-comin’?

As I’m sure you know, the now-famous case of Baby Joseph in Canada is becoming critical. He could die in the next couple of weeks if his breathing tube is removed as the hospital and the government intend.

Baby Joseph is only 13 months old and often has difficulty breathing on his own. He needs a procedure called a tracheostomy in order to go home and live under his parents’ care. However, the Canadian health care system is refusing to let the family take care of their son — even though hospitals in the United States have privately said that they would take Joseph in and give him the tracheostomy he needs to survive. U.S. doctors and hospitals who are now familiar with the case are appalled that Baby Joseph hadn’t received the tracheostomy 3 or 4 months ago rather than make the baby suffer all this time. Read more…

I’m just curious to know how some of our commenters feel about this situation.

February 26, 2011–There’s an 18-month-old baby boy in Canada who is about to be put to death by the Canadian government. I’m writing to you today so that you can help Priests For Life save this baby’s life if possible.

Here’s the situation … The baby, who is known as Baby Joseph, is suffering from a critical condition that requires him to have a breathing tube in order to stay alive.
However, the Canadian government has decided that they don’t want to spend any more money on Baby Joseph to keep him alive. Read more…

Kind of weird, right?

by Mariette Ulrich

A former Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, once famously quipped: “The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.”

Unless, it would seem, the “nation” means schoolchildren ages 12-17, and the “state” is local school board bureaucrats and/or the provincial Ministry of Education. The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (Ontario, Canada) plans to issue a survey which asks, among other things, for children to disclose their gender (four choices) and sexual orientation (nine choices). Proponents claim the survey is voluntary, but rather than requiring parental permission for the survey to be administered, the onus is on parents to opt out in writing (by Nov. 19), if they do not wish their child to participate. Read more…

According to the Catholic Register (Canada), have been charged with non-academic misconduct for their graphic displays of the results of abortion:

The charges resulted from a Genocide Awareness Project display the group hosted April 8 and 9. Its display, which compares abortion to atrocities such as the Rwandan genocide and the Holocaust, had been hosted without incident eight times since 2006. On April 8, campus security allegedly asked the students to turn their signs inward or leave the campus grounds. They refused. Read more…

I have blogged about this Quebec Policy Against Homophobia when the document first appeared. I pointed out that the Quebec government has written itself a blank check: they plan to wipe out homophobia and heterosexism. Now, heterosexism is the view that heterosexuality is normal. News flash: heterosexuality is normal for our species. It is simply not possible to wipe out this view and all its manifestations. Hence, my claim that the Provincial govt has given itself permission to intervene in every aspect of civil society.
I was beginning to think that I was the only person who noticed or cared about this massive state power grab. But, now, I have discovered this hard-hitting essay by Prof Douglas Farrow of McGill University.

The Québec policy against homophobia was released in December with introductory fanfare Read more…

Margaret Somerville Mercatornet.com

There are deeply-rooted cultural reasons why the Western world returns again and again to euthanasia as a solution to the problems of suffering and death.

Euthanasia is back on the agenda in Canada. The first hour of debate on a “euthanasia bill”, Bill C-384, has already taken place in Parliament and a second hour is scheduled for November 16. As a “private member’s bill”, it is limited to two hours of debate and is expected to go to a second reading vote on November 18. If passed, it would be referred to committee for detailed discussion. Read more…