I'm not sure if anyone has been following the events in Canada recently, but if you haven't been, let me give you a bit of background. Justin Trudeau, the country's Liberal Party prime minister has a horrendous record on life issues that makes Barack Obama's look like that of Mitt Romney by comparison. In the past, Mr. Trudeau has stated that all Liberal candidates will in future have to support abortion-on-demand, effectively expelling not only any pro-lifers, but anyone has has any concerns at all over abortion. More recently, he has had the audacity to lecture other political leaders, namely our very own Leo Varadkar about their abortion laws, calling on Ireland to recognise abortion as a "fundamental right". Mr. Varadkar, far from criticising this inappropriate interference in Irish affairs, told him about his plans to remove what little protection the unborn have in this country, referring to the Repeal movement as "campaigners for womens' rights". The fact that legal abortion often entails the violation of women's rights to bodily and mental integrity, and facilitates the evils that led to the feminist movement in the first place was left uncommented on.
Five months after this meeting, Trudeau has now gone even further. He has now declared that all non-profit organisations receiving federal funding for youth employment will now have to explicitly subscribe to the Liberal platform on abortion. In other words, if you support any restrictions on abortion whatsoever, the Canadian government will not not give you a single penny. To give you an example of how extreme this is, imagine if some right-wing government required any charitable organisations receiving funding from the state to refuse to aid refugees and migrants. The international media would be up in arms (even if the domestic media had been gagged), and there would be calls for sanctions and boycotts would be organised, and rightly so. Why then should Mr. Trudeau be spared the same antipathy, especially since he has gone even further and is ordering charities to violate their consciences if they want aid from his government? Given that I am writing from an Irish rather than a Canadian perspective, I think it is best to direct those wanting further analysis on Mr. Trudeau's actions to Johnathon van Maren's Bridgehead site.
But what I am most interested here is Mr. Varadkar's reaction to this. He received a lot of fanfare and a lot of fawning coverage of his visit to Canada. Therefore, there is an onus on him to make a statement that what Mr. Trudeau is doing in Canada will not be repeated here. Thus far, however, he has remained silent on the matter, which simply isn't good enough. Even more importantly, we need to ask ourselves as the Eighth Amendment is placed upon the chopping block: Is Canada really the society that we want to emulate? Do we really want a society where people are expected to conform to the values of the ruling party or risk being ostracised? Do we really want a society which regards unborn life as mere pieces of rubbish which can be annihilated at will? I don't.
Five months after this meeting, Trudeau has now gone even further. He has now declared that all non-profit organisations receiving federal funding for youth employment will now have to explicitly subscribe to the Liberal platform on abortion. In other words, if you support any restrictions on abortion whatsoever, the Canadian government will not not give you a single penny. To give you an example of how extreme this is, imagine if some right-wing government required any charitable organisations receiving funding from the state to refuse to aid refugees and migrants. The international media would be up in arms (even if the domestic media had been gagged), and there would be calls for sanctions and boycotts would be organised, and rightly so. Why then should Mr. Trudeau be spared the same antipathy, especially since he has gone even further and is ordering charities to violate their consciences if they want aid from his government? Given that I am writing from an Irish rather than a Canadian perspective, I think it is best to direct those wanting further analysis on Mr. Trudeau's actions to Johnathon van Maren's Bridgehead site.
But what I am most interested here is Mr. Varadkar's reaction to this. He received a lot of fanfare and a lot of fawning coverage of his visit to Canada. Therefore, there is an onus on him to make a statement that what Mr. Trudeau is doing in Canada will not be repeated here. Thus far, however, he has remained silent on the matter, which simply isn't good enough. Even more importantly, we need to ask ourselves as the Eighth Amendment is placed upon the chopping block: Is Canada really the society that we want to emulate? Do we really want a society where people are expected to conform to the values of the ruling party or risk being ostracised? Do we really want a society which regards unborn life as mere pieces of rubbish which can be annihilated at will? I don't.
