Courageous Mothers Thanked

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April Kemick of the LFP reported the following about Rev. Edward Malloy, president of the University of Notre Dame who received an award yesterday from UWO despite a concerted effort by Catholics who felt it would have been prudent for him to decline. He was quoted to have commented.

"I know nothing significant about controversies within the university," he said. “My presence has nothing to do with that – it has everything to do with celebrating with the graduates.”

In his address, Malloy made no mention of the controversy, instead advising students of the benefits of friendship, service and moral integrity."
 
April Kemick of the LFP contributed the following:

**"Earlier, Canadian policy critic Maude Barlow – who received a doctorate of laws – applauded the university in her convocation speech for honouring Morgentaler. **

**“I’m very proud of the university for having the courage to honour Dr. Henry Morgentaler,” she said to a mixed reaction from the Alumni Hall audience. **

"There was half silence, half cheering," said Sandra Nash, whose daughter received a bachelor of education degree. "I was quite happy that she said it because we have a free society here and she has every right to comment."
 
Front page headlines of the LFP, June 15 are misleading or to put it kindly a double entendre.

"Morgentaler staying silent" by Patrick Maloney.

“As for Morgentaler, his voice will likely remain unheard until tomorrow morning, when he addresses about 400 graduates.”
 
The continuation of the story on the inside page was titled, “MORGENTALER:Silence typical of his humble nature”

The spin put on this story by Dr. M’s assistant is that “He’s just not going to stir the hornets’ nest.” Then pointing an accusatory finger at the prolifers, “These (protesters) may not care about these students who are graduating that day, but Mr. Morgentaler does.”

Interesting, even the assistant failed to call him “doctor.”

A member of parliament said, “He doesn’t have a big ego and he stays out of the limelight.”
 
Nikki Cooke, organizer of several prolife protests said opponents have no choice but to speak out. **“We are the voice of the unborn.” **The demonstration, on the part of the unborn will be silent. She did acknowledge “there could be a confrontation” tomorrow.
 
Whoever laid the stories out on the page of the LFP chose to put a highlighted story entitled, **FIVE SHOOTINGS IN LONDON THIS YEAR **immediately below the Morgentaler story. A very disquieting juxtaposition.
 
Christians urge rallies to protest abortion

Websites suggest busloads head to Western to demonstrate.

canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2005/06/15/1088850-sun.html
The tone of the article was one of sarcasm and forboding as if the invitation to Americans to join their fellow Canadian protesters in a silent demonstration tomorrow was somehow sinister. The media just doesn’t get it. There is a world war going on against the children of the world and borders have not contained the overflow of blood from these tiny victims. The refusal to climb up into the attic and gaze at our true portrait is something equivalent to the decomposition of character in "The Picture of Dorian Gray."
 
The only good news of the day in the LFP. THE MORGENTALER CONTROVERSY Abortion Foes plan prayers
Catholic students are called to silent prayer services as the abortion pioneer gets a degree
by Jonathan Sher

"All eight Catholic high schools in the London district and their 9,000 students will participate in the moment of silence and prayer. Other Catholic high schools across Ontario and their roughly 200,000 students have been asked to join in, Rapai said.

Tomorrow’s prayer service at King’s will focus on the sanctity of life, said King’s principal Gerald Killan.

“To witness our values and beliefs in a prayer service – what more powerful means of protest can there be?” he said.

Also announcing plans at today’s media conference will be Bishop Ronald Fabbro of the Roman Catholic diocese of London, Rev. William McGrattan, rector at St. Peter’s Seminary and the principal of Brescia University College."
 
The editors of the LFP have finally written an editorial. Legal Abortion is a reality.
canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/Opinion/home.html

Judy Rebick can relax now. One line worth noting because it suggests the “Celebration of Choice” rally is tasteless trimphalism. “Abortion is not a crime in Canada. This is a fact not to be celebrated, but merely to be recognized.”
 
London Free Press Letter to the Editor by Robin Manton

Times have changed since the 1960s

"In her letter, Morgentaler has given women choice (June 13), Elaine M. B. Wilson refers to her friend’s '60s back-alley abortion that went wrong. The fact that it happened in the '60s states a lot. This is 2005. Pregnancy outside of marriage, although not the ideal situation, is not stigmatized the way it was back then. Young women are no longer sent away to visit a sick aunt for nine months. Now, schools provide day care for unwed teens, condom dispensers are in school washrooms, sex ed is provided increasingly earlier to our children in public schools, and the consequences of unprotected sex are discussed openly in most households between parents and teens.

There should be no reason for Morgentaler’s services to be required in this day and age. People are having to fly to China to adopt because there aren’t enough babies in the Canadian system. What’s wrong with that picture?

Abortion isn’t about choice but about a lack of responsibility. Unless a woman is raped, there is no reason for an unwanted pregnancy to occur with all the options that are currently available. Having an abortion because you couldn’t take a few minutes out of your enjoyment to be responsible is not the way to go. Make a choice before it gets to that point."
 
Letter to LFP by Howard Snow

Academic freedom is not the issue here

"Regarding Jim Turk’s column, Academic freedom key to UWO debate (May 27): If the issue regarding Dr. Henry Morgentaler concerned an earned degree, Turk’s position would be eminently supportable. However this debate concerns an honorary degree.

Academic freedom serves as a shield to protect professors engaged in scholarly pursuits. Academic freedom upholds the right of professors to advance knowledge through their research and to disseminate knowledge through their teaching and publication. It is those areas of a professor’s job that academic freedom protects. Not every decision made by a professor or committee of professors, then, is one to which the principle of academic freedom applies.

Suppose that a committee of professors decided that the office walls in their building should be painted black, rather than the standard beige. That decision has nothing to do with advancing or disseminating knowledge and the concept of academic freedom would have no application.

Similarly, the awarding of honorary degrees has nothing to do with either increasing or disseminating knowledge. Such degrees have several purposes. For example, they are commonly used to thank benefactors or to entice well-known people to address graduates. Beryl and Richard M. Ivey have given generously to UWO and both have received honorary degrees from Western. Memorial University of Newfoundland recently awarded an honorary degree to comedian Rick Mercer and he delivered a very enjoyable speech.

The decisions to award those honorary degrees were outside the true academic function of universities and academic freedom had no place in any debate about the merits of those decisions. Likewise, academic freedom has no place in this debate over the decision to honour Morgentaler."
 
Margarida Andre of London the the LFP.

Pro-lifers can’t solve world’s ills

"Regarding Robby Smink’s letter, Save the children already suffering (June 8):

It’s pathetic to expect that every single pro-lifer has the responsibility of healing all of the world’s ills. Everyone can do only so much. We are at least doing something about it starting right here in our own neck of the woods. The assumption that pro-lifers don’t care about the global child is not only ignorant but malicious.

As a person among many other pro-lifers who gives of my time and finances for many worthy world causes, including children’s rights, I find these comments appalling".
 
Rosalinda said:
Times have changed since the 1960s
Click to expand...

I know. I read this too. I thought this is one of the best letters I have read. (D-oh! I typed ‘written.’ I can hardly stay awake.) I actually wanted to write something similar but just no time.

There are some changes happening. And I think we should look these changes in the eyes. The Clintons for instance have been saying that abortion should be rare among other things. The pro-abortion crowd seem big on the back-room abortuary rhetoric.

Well yes. There was a time when women did not have status in the work place. If they were not married but pregnant it was worse. Not only would they be fired from their jobs but they were ostracized from their families (sometimes) and had nowhere to live (sometimes).

That has changed. Single mothers are commonly accepted in our society. They work. They have priority in public housing. It is no longer a question of survival to weigh whether or not to get an abortion. At least not the survival of the mother. The survival of the child certainly.
 
Front page of the LFP June 16 a young woman appears in a large photograph with pin worn by participants in the “Celebration of Choice” yesterday. It depicted a simple black coathanger with red circle and line across it. It still makes me wonder why no Canadian editor is prepared to put a photo of what abortion really looks like on their front page.

Degree of conflict
Police and UWO officials brace for trouble as Morgentaler’s defenders and detractors turn out.
**Bishop Fabbro is to give the homily at an early morning Mass at the cathedral meant to express collective support for the sanctity of life. **
**"Fabbro yesterday encouraged Catholics to attend the protest. “Many of our Catholics will join them in that protest and I certainly support them,” he said in a joint media conference with the heads of area Catholic school boards and the principals of Catholic colleges affiliated with UWO, King’s and Brescia.

UWO’s decision is a threat because it pushes Canadian society beyond mere tolerance of an evil act, he said.

“It’s a step further. It’s not only tolerating (abortion) . . It’s honouring it.”

**
 
LFP, June 16

"The issue split those who oppose abortion, with some calling on King’s and Brescia to break away from UWO, then accusing the Catholic hierarchy, who favoured remaining with Western, of choosing appeasement over biblical morality.

It’s possible repeated actions like the honouring of Morgentaler could lead the diocese to favor de-affiliation, Fabbro said yesterday.

“That could happen,” he said.

But one incident in what has been a century of good relations doesn’t come close to that threshold, he said. "
 
An incorrect phone number for Project Rachel was posted yesterday. Project Rachel, a support group and anonymous hotline for post-abortive women.

The correct number is:
** 1-888-355-1110.**
 
An incorrect phone number appeared in the post: Support group tries to heal abortion hurt by Patrick Maloney LFP, June 14. about Project Rachel, a support group and anonymous hotline for post-abortive women. The correct number is 1-888-355-1110.
 
Supporters stage rally

Feminist-academic Judy Rebick says today, when Dr. Henry Morgentaler is honoured by UWO, will be the ‘proudest day’ of the graduates’ lives.

More than a 150 abortion rights supporters rallied … a show of support for Dr. M.

Among those who turned up was Judy Rebick… who said she applauds UWO’S decision …

‘I’ve heard people say that it’s a mistake… but (today) is going to be the proudest day of (the graduates’) lives, " she said.

Because of the rain the rally was moved indoors. Rebick said the graduates will long remember today. They are will remember “a university that stood up for its convictions.”
 
LFP quotations compiled by Jonathan Sher

In his own words

In the weeks leading to his receiveing an honorary degree at the UWO today, Dr. M. has not spoken publicly.

His visit to London will be the first since the 1980’s when twice he spoke.

>"Let us not let a shrill group of fanatics impose their will on our society."
**>“If you see a brick and think it is a house, you are crazy. If you see one cell and say it is a baby, I think you are crazy as well.” **
**> “Imagine the gall of these people. They are saying that women who seek abortions and the doctors who perform them are murderers.” **

**> “People who want us to believe that from the moment of conception there is a human being, the question arises if 50 per cent to 75 per cent of pregnancies end in spontaneous miscarriage, how come God, if He exists, has so little respect for this little baby?” **

>"Women had justification to abort at 20 or 22 weeks where a fetus has Down syndrome, where “the baby is born with defects and will never develop a full intelligence,” or one that would be born "severely crippled and never able to lead a normal life."
 
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