National Campus Life Network

This post was written for uOttawa Students For Life by uOttawa Students For Life. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

by Alana Beddoe

An Environics poll commissioned by Life Canada found that 95% of Canadians think palliative and hospice care should be a high (66%) or medium (29%) priority for the government. Only about a third of Canadians have good access to palliative care. Palliative care focuses on pain management, emotional and comfort care at the end of life.

Close to three-quarters (74%) of those polled were worried that if the law against euthanasia is changed a significant number of elderly and disabled persons would be euthanized without their consent.

More information can be found here: Canadians’ Attitudes Towards Euthanasia

Read the comments at the uOttawa Students For Life website.

This post was written for uOttawa Students For Life by uOttawa Students For Life. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

Check out this article on assisted suicide in the University of Ottawa’s English-language student newspaper, The Fulcrum: http://thefulcrum.ca/2011/11/assisting-the-suicidal/

Assisted suicide conveys a brutal message as to who our society really cares about. It tells the elderly, the weak, and those in pain that we are unwilling to foster their well being. Instead, we propose an easy alternative: Death. Easy for the rest of us, at least.

Read the comments at the uOttawa Students For Life website.

This post was written for Brock Students For Life                               by Brock Students for Life. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

Hello! We have relocated our blog to Tumblr! You can find the new blog here. You can find old posts from this blog on Tumblr as well as links to our Twitter and Facebook pages. This blog will be deleted shortly but we look forward to your readership and comments on our new blog!

Read the comments at the Brock Students For Life                               website.

This post was written for uOttawa Students For Life by uOttawa Students For Life. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

by Kate Larson

Randy Alcorn’s ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments is a book I’d like to have on hand at all times. I think it should be required reading in high schools and in university ethics, journalism, public policy, and women’s studies classes. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Divided into sections by type of argument, it takes every common pro-choice statement or question and lays out all of the counter arguments. Alcorn doesn’t shrink from his subject matter, but his tone is calm and rational, not hectoring. He relies on a commendable variety of sources; the book contains 789 citations including both pro-life and pro-choice literature, secular media, congressional testimony, and personal conversations with former abortion providers. The last section of the book contains a variety of further resources – appeals to different groups of people affected by, supportive of, complicit in or working against abortion, a section on finding forgiveness after abortion, a list of pro-life resources, sections on chemical abortions and birth control, biblical passages and a bible study lesson on life issues, ways of giving practical help to the unborn and their mothers, ways of communicating the pro-life message, and a sermon and position statement on the sanctity of life that he delivered at his church. Alcorn is a former Protestant pastor and, now, a writer and the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries. In the book, he makes clear his background, beliefs and pro-life activities. He augments some of his arguments with his own experiences, but never substitutes subjective arguments for factual ones.

I have only two caveats about the book, and they are hardly even that. First, being American, the book refers to American laws, statistics and resources, though I noticed one Canadian pro-life organization in the resource list. That takes nothing away from the usefulness of this book to Canadian pro-lifers, but it would be great to have a Canadian edition with a list of Canadian resources.

Second, the book is difficult to read all at once because the subject matter and some of the information can be depressing. Of course, as the introduction states, it is not meant to be read straight through, but rather to be used as a reference.

All things considered, ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments is an excellent resource for everyone – those who may not have considered life issues at all, those who may have questions, and those who thought they had all the answers, whether pro-life or pro-choice.

Read the comments at the uOttawa Students For Life website.

This post was written for uOttawa Students For Life by uOttawa Students For Life. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

by James Richmond

I somewhat recently attended a debate hosted by uOttawa Students for Life in mid-November. At this debate, the pro-choice debater, Jovan Morales, posed an often used argument which presents abortion as a ‘harm-reduction’ solution. Essentially, this position proposes that without legalized abortion, women will seek ‘back-alley abortions’ in non-sterile environments where the possibility of infection and maternal mortality is much higher.

There are a number of issues with this argument, and I will briefly address two of them. The first is that I see this approach as merely a band-aid solution. Legalizing abortions to give women access to sterile facilities with skilled physicians does not address what led the women to seek abortion in the first place: Was it a boyfriend who does not wish to deal with the consequences of his actions? Parents who want to avoid family embarrassment? The terrible trauma of rape? The woman who does not want her life to be disrupted by having a child? A lack of support from family and friends? In these situations, I believe there is a cultural problem rather than a medical one. Western culture is self-centric in that we place utmost importance on our personal choices: What is it I want to do? How does this affect me? What about asking what exactly is at stake when it comes to abortion, and more precisely who? We know beyond a shadow of scientific doubt that the preborn are human beings and as such their lives must be protected along with their mothers’.

Furthermore, if the foundation of the argument is based on the health of the mother, institutionalized abortion is no guarantee of even a decrease in maternal mortality rates. A study conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) titled “Trends in Maternal Mortality” discovered that from 1990 to 2008, after the legalization of abortion, the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) of Canada increased by 94 percent (28) and the MMR of the United States increased 96 percent (32). Legalized abortion is clearly no panacea for women’s health.

The ‘harm-reduction’ argument is also used to push for abortion clinics in developing countries. The National Right to Life group published an article which discusses the myth proposed above by Mr. Morales. I encourage you to read the short document, “Why legalized abortion is not good for women’s health.”

Read the comments at the uOttawa Students For Life website.

This post was written for Carleton Lifeline by jamesbshaw. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

Writ of Referenda 2012

Read the comments at the Carleton Lifeline website.

This post was written for Carleton Lifeline by ruthlobo. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
FORMER NATIONAL STUDENT GROUP REP ADVOCATES THE REMOVAL OF PRO-LIFERS FROM CARLETON CAMPUS

Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) former National Deputy Chairperson Shelly Melanson circulated a referendum question to ban pro-lifers on campus.

January 12, 2012. OTTAWA, ON—This week, the former CFS National Deputy Chairperson Shelly Melanson publicized a referendum question to the Carleton University Student’s Association (CUSA) which is creating a firestorm of controversy. The proposed question involves censoring certain groups: “Are you in favour of banning groups such as Lifeline, the Genocide Awareness Project, Campaign for Life Coalition and other organizations that use inaccurate information and violent images to discourage women from exploring all options in the event of pregnancy from Carleton University?”

The question has been added to CUSA’s Write of Referenda for 2012, which indicates that the referenda will be held concurrently with the 2012 General Elections.

“Carleton Lifeline has already been decertified as a university club,” said Taylor Hyatt, co-president of Lifeline. “What this referenda question amounts to is an attempt to not only censor pro-life students, but ostensibly have them evicted from Carleton’s campus.”

Carleton Lifeline was decertified and defunded by CUSA in December of 2010, several months after five pro-life students were arrested on campus by police officers summoned by campus security for attempting to erect a graphic display, the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP: unmaskingchoice.ca/projects/gap).

Former Lifeline president Ruth (Lobo) Shaw, who was arrested at Carleton in 2010, commented, “Carleton University and the student union have already made every attempt to silence students who attempt to have a discussion about abortion. They’ve already handcuffed Carleton students and put them in paddy wagons once. Is Ms. Melanson advocating for this to be standard university procedure when faced with dissenting views?”

Brandon Wallingford, the CUSA Arts and Social Sciences Counciller, decried the question as an infringement upon freedom of speech and noted that pro-life students were not the only group targeted.

“It is disturbing that there are those who wish to ban opposing points of view instead of engaging in the type of mature discussion that universities used to be famous for,” said Wallingford. “Instead, we have individuals showing a callous disregard for the rights of those who disagree with them, as is indicated by their attempt at further censoring and banning other student groups on campus including my club the Firearms Association of Carleton University. These attacks on the rights of Carleton students whether they be pro-life students or students who enjoy sport shooting are disgusting and a violation of their fundamental freedoms of expression and association.”

For more information, contact Carleton Lifeline president Taylor Hyatt at 613-558-2906, or former Lifeline president Ruth (Lobo) Shaw at 403-668-0485.
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Read the comments at the Carleton Lifeline website.

This post was written for uOttawa Students For Life by uOttawa Students For Life. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

by Nicole Pachla

Here we are, at the beginning of a new year. Some of us may have made a few resolutions to try to keep throughout the year…
I would like to encourage you to make one more resolution. It does not require a whole lot of time or energy, but it does requires some courage and conviction. It is the resolution of becoming a little more active in the pro-life movement. And by that, I do not mean putting all of your time and energy into the pro-life cause, but rather becoming more involved in little things and situations. For example, if the topic of abortion comes up in conversation, do not be afraid to share your point of view and be ready to defend it. If you have friends who are not pro-life, and again the topic of abortion arises, gently explain to them the ugliness of abortion and why it should never be an option. Please, do not let any opportunity to show the truth of abortion pass you by. We need to make everyone aware of its reality. Abortion happens every day. Just in Canada, approximately THREE HUNDRED (300) babies are killed PER DAY. That is incredible, terrifying, and very sad. So please, lend your voice to the unborn and help us defend them.

Read the comments at the uOttawa Students For Life website.

This post was written for Go Life: U of A Campus Pro-Life by campusprolife. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

Welcome back from the Christmas break!

Our next meeting will be held on January 18th, 2012 at 6pm in Humanities 4-42. A guest speaker from National Campus Life Network will be there to talk to our group about being effective with the pro-life message on campus.

Read the comments at the Go Life: U of A Campus Pro-Life website.

This post was written for uOttawa Students For Life by uOttawa Students For Life. It does not necessarily represent the views of NCLN.

Read the comments at the uOttawa Students For Life website.