View topic - Morgentaler Flees in Face of (Cooked Up) Death Threat :: Free Dominion - Principled Conservative - Party and Canadian Politics

http://www.thestar.com/article/297596

Death threat disrupts abortion meeting
Morgentaler escorted from gathering marking 20th anniversary of historic abortion ruling
January 26, 2008
Catherine Dunphy
Staff Reporter

Two standing ovations and one death threat.

That's the reception Dr. Henry Morgentaler received at a University of Toronto symposium yesterday marking the 20th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court ruling overturning Canada's abortion law.

"Over the past 37 years I have dedicated myself to the struggle to achieve rights to reproductive freedom and to provide facilities for women," Morgentaler told the symposium, held by the law faculty. "This struggle gave meaning to my life."

He said the Jan. 28, 1988, decision was the impetus for him and other physicians to establish abortion clinics across Canada.

"I am proud to have played such a pivotal role in the decision."

Escorted by security personnel, Morgentaler left the conference shortly after 10:30 a.m. According to his Toronto clinic staff, they were responding to a telephoned death threat.

"The who's who of the abortion world was in that room," said Shayna Hodgson, Morgentaler's assistant.

"The threat might not have been directed at Henry, but security was taking no chances."

Vancouver physician and abortion provider Dr. Gary Romalis also left the symposium.

In 1994, Romalis was shot in the leg by a sniper while eating breakfast in the kitchen of his home.

Posted: 01/ 28/ 08 8:20 pm Post subject:

Its a theatrical play to denegrade the opposition...staged by all the usual suspects in the malthusian death cult that is the foundation of trudeaupian political culture.
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Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive; those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. - C.S. Lewis, In Freedom .

Celebrate Hard Likker and Handgun week here at the Shadowy GroupTM

Posted: 01/ 28/ 08 8:36 pm Post subject:

Its one thing to be at your wits end, not knowing Christ and making a decision that will affect the rest of your life. and then there is willingly attending a murder conference and applauding the very evil that perpetuates it. I pray for you as i pray for the unborn.
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Posted: 01/ 28/ 08 9:25 pm Post subject:

Posted: 01/ 28/ 08 10:03 pm Post subject:

Somebody check Hailey's long distance phone bill. Wink

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PRAY FOR ROY
Pray

Posted: 01/ 28/ 08 10:05 pm Post subject:

Posted: 01/ 28/ 08 10:12 pm Post subject:

I certainly wouldn't do that and didn't even know about the event!

Posted: 01/ 28/ 08 10:52 pm Post subject:

Well, nobody did. It's a cooked up tale by the pro-abort crowd to feed the tale of the frothing anti-abortion extremists seeking to take away women's rights, yadda, yadda ... Of course, the media dutifully report it all as fact.

Posted: 01/ 28/ 08 10:56 pm Post subject:

Posted: 01/ 28/ 08 11:05 pm Post subject:

On a positive note, most of the people at the symposium were fairly old, and while one of the speakers commented about how thrilled she was to see a decent representation of young women there, a large proportion of them were actually pro-lifers who registered for the event.

Cheers,

Frank

Posted: 01/ 28/ 08 11:12 pm Post subject:

An Interview with Dr. Henry Morgentaler

January 21st, 2008
by TheCourt.ca

On January 28, 1988, the Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in R. v. Morgentaler, [1988] 1 S.C.R. 30. To mark this month’s twentieth anniversary, TheCourt.ca caught up with one of the accused in the case, Dr. Henry Morgentaler. The following is drawn from an email exchange with Dr. Morgentaler.

TheCourt.ca: What do you remember most about January 28, 1988?

Henry Morgentaler: Well, I remember attending the Supreme Court in Ottawa, and my astonishment that the Supreme Court actually invalidated the abortion law. I was ecstatic about the ruling.

TheCourt.ca: What surprised you about it?

HM: I was surprised that it was so final and definitive, and I accept it as a vindication for my struggle and still view it now as a major achievement. In fact, the Supreme Court decision was everything I longed for and aspired to. It opened a way for me and for other physicians to establish clinics across the country and to provide the services that women needed in an atmosphere of compassion and with competence.

TheCourt.ca: As your case made its way through the courts, your name became synonymous with the abortion debate. What was that experience like?

HM: I must say I enjoyed the experience of representing the pro-choice side and I was happy I was able to defend it well. I am very proud of that legacy. I feel that I defended a great cause, and I did it with conviction, dedication, and respect for myself and my opponents.

TheCourt.ca: What was the scariest part?

HM: Well, there is no doubt that the stress involved in fighting for abortion rights and the actual physical attacks and threats took their toll. I personally felt that I was acting on my ideals, I was very gratified about the results I was able to achieve and it largely compensated for the stress and intimidation I had to endure. Unfortunately, my family was subjected to threats, and danger which affected me greatly.

TheCourt.ca: Given the chance, would you put yourself in that position again?

HM: Yes! This struggle for abortion rights gave meaning to my life, and it corresponded to the ideals that I inherited from my parents, dedication to human rights and an ability and willingness to make this world a better place to live.

TheCourt.ca: Twenty years later, how secure is your victory?

HM: The victory is pretty secure, in my mind, because in twenty years we have been able to help many women. Canadians have had a good experience with the ability of women in Canada to access good abortion services, and the people are aware of the enormous benefits for society that this has engendered; women no longer die as a result of “botched illegal abortions,” the mortality of women in childbirth has improved, and the recent polls show that 80% of the population in Canada are pro-choice.

TheCourt.ca: Since R. v. Morgentaler, successive Canadian governments have been reluctant to place new criminal restrictions on abortion. By contrast, Roe v. Wade doesn’t seem to have had a similar impact on U.S. state governments. How do you explain this difference?

HM: It seems that Canadian attitudes towards abortion are more enlightened than those prevalent in the United States, we don’t seem to have as many fundamentalists in Canada as there are in the United States, and the Canadian experience with abortion services over the last twenty years have convinced Canadians of the importance of providing this service

TheCourt.ca: You’re currently involved in a New Brunswick case that concerns the extent to which provincial governments actually have a duty to provide access to abortion. Is this the new frontier in abortion litigation in Canada?

HM: The New Brunswick case is unique unto itself. The major parties in New Brunswick, both the Conservatives and the Liberals, are anti-choice, which makes the situation difficult. I wouldn’t call it a new frontier; I would call it “old school” stubbornness, and the influence of religion on the government.

TheCourt.ca: Section 15 of the Charter (the equality guarantee) wasn’t a factor in the Supreme Court’s 1988 decision, since your arrest came in 1984, one year before section 15 came into force. Now that section 15 is available to courts considering abortion litigation, what impact do you think it will have?

HM: I think it will have a positive impact, but I think it won’t be necessary to invoke section 15 under the Charter because Abortion rights in Canada now seem to be well established, and no serious challenge to it could succeed according to my estimate.

Barf

_________________
Hall Monitor of the Shadowy Group^TM
The most effective way to stifle democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: activist judges, human rights tribunals, parliamentary committees, civil service bureaucrats and political party hacks.

Posted: 01/ 28/ 08 11:18 pm Post subject:

Morgentaler at 20: An Activist reflects

January 7th, 2008
by Judy Rebick

On January 28, 1988, the Supreme Court handed down its landmark judgment in R. v. Morgentaler. To mark this month’s twentieth anniversary, The Court.ca has commissioned contributions from some of those involved in the case. Today, journalist and former National Action Committee on the Status of Women president Judy Rebick describes how the ruling was received by the Canadian women’s movement.

I’ll never forget January 28, 1988, the day the Supreme Court struck down the abortion law. It was freezing cold. A group of pro-choice activists were standing in front of the Morgentaler clinic along with a mob of media waiting to hear the news from our comrades in Ottawa. They were supposed to call the clinic as soon as the decision came down and the clinic staff would let us know what happened. We didn’t have cell phones in those days. A reporter called me aside and said she had just heard on her radio that the Supreme Court had struck down the law on the grounds that it interfered with women’s right to security of the person. I didn’t believe her. We thought the justices might very well strike down the law, but we figured it would be on the technical grounds of lack of equal access. A decision based on the Charter guarantee of security of the person was too much to hope for. After all, the major argument of the pro-choice movement was that a woman had the right to control her own body.

Indeed, the majority decision written by Chief Justice Brian Dickson stated:

[S]tate interference with bodily integrity and serious state-imposed psychological stress, at least in the criminal law context, constitutes a breach of security of the person… Section 251 [the old abortion law] clearly interferes with a woman’s physical and bodily integrity. Forcing a woman, by threat of criminal sanction, to carry a foetus to term unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations, is a profound interference with a woman’s body and thus an infringement of security of the person.

It was a profound and incredibly long-lasting victory that for us was of equal significance to the winning of the right to vote a couple of generations before.

It was a profound and incredibly long-lasting victory that for us was of equal significance to the winning of the right to vote a couple of generations before. In essence, the highest court of the land said that the abortion law violated a woman’s right to control her own body free from state interference.

Voting with the majority, Justice Bertha Wilson went much further. It was really the first time we saw a feminist interpretation of law at the highest level.

[T]he present legislative scheme for the obtaining of an abortion clearly subjects pregnant women to considerable emotional stress as well as to unnecessary physical risk. I believe, however, that the flaw in the present legislative scheme goes much deeper than that. In essence, what it does is assert that the woman’s capacity to reproduce is not to be subject to her own control. It is to be subject to the control of the state. She may not choose whether to exercise her existing capacity or not to exercise it. This is not, in my view, just a matter of interfering with her right to liberty in the sense (already discussed) of her right to personal autonomy in decision-making, it is a direct interference with her physical “person” as well.

Wilson added that it was likely impossible for a man even to understand the dilemma of a pregnant woman contemplating an abortion, “not just because it is outside the realm of his personal experience – but because he can relate to it only by objectifying it, thereby eliminating the subjective elements of the female psyche, which are at the heart of the dilemma.”

Morgentaler was acquitted by a jury in Toronto in 1984, one year before the Equality Rights provision of the Charter was proclaimed, so his lawyer Morris Manning had to rely on other provisions of the Charter for his arguments. Despite the battle for equality rights waged by the women’s movement in English Canada, there is no doubt that the Morgentaler decision was the most important women’s equality decision ever decided by the Supreme Court.

After eight years of battles in the courts, in the streets, in the media and throughout society, we had won our argument at the highest court in the land and in the court of public opinion. The next day riding the street car, everyone was talking about the victory. Dr. Morgentaler had become a hero to most Canadians, the little guy fighting against the system. He had gone to jail for his beliefs in the 1970’s in Quebec, but still was willing to risk incarceration again in Ontario. He stood up to death threats, anti-semitism, ridicule and every other way that opponents try to silence fighters for justice, but he never wavered.

But without the work of the women’s movement, it is doubtful the victory would have been as deep-seated. First, the abortion battle is probably the best example of the relationship between social struggles and legal decisions. For almost ten years, the abortion debate had been on the front burner in Ontario and then across the country. Debates, marches, direct action, clinics opening and in some cases being shut down, clashes with the anti’s, resolutions in the unions, on campuses and in community organizations, everyone had to take a stand, including the Justices.

Chief Justice Dickson told me many years later that the Morgentaler decision was his proudest moment on the Supreme Court.

If we compare the Morgentaler decision to Roe v. Wade in the U.S., we can see a number of key differences. Of course Roe v. Wade only legalized abortion in the first trimester, but after it was passed, the women’s movement figured they had won an enormous victory and turned to other issues. In the meantime, the anti-choice movement began organizing and they form the basis of the Christian Right that has helped elect reactionary presidents ever since. The women’s movement in the U.S. had to remobilize on the abortion issue and it has been the centre of their concerns ever since.

In Canada, the battle continued after the Supreme Court decision. In 1989, two women, Barbara Dodd in Ontario and Chantal Daigle in Quebec, took the 1988 decision even further. In both cases, their boyfriends tried to get an injunction to stop the woman from having an abortion. In Tremblay v. Daigle, the Supreme Court ruled that the foetus has no legal status in Canadian law, under either the common law or Quebec Civil law.

In the same period, Brian Mulroney’s government tried to recriminalize abortion with a law they thought would stand a Charter test. It was defeated by a single vote in the Senate. No government since has dared to make another attempt.

Barf

_________________
Hall Monitor of the Shadowy Group^TM
The most effective way to stifle democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: activist judges, human rights tribunals, parliamentary committees, civil service bureaucrats and political party hacks.

Posted: 01/ 28/ 08 11:21 pm Post subject:

Morris Manning Q.C.

(In response to Rebick)

While Ms. Rebick is correct and that the jury acquitted one year before the equality rights provisions of the Charter was proclaimed, equality rights arguments were presented by me to the Supreme Court of Canada. It was the first time the Court had an opportunity to consider an argument that differential treatment on the basis of gender while favoring a woman’s right to choose was indeed guaranteed by the equality provisions of the Charter. As I have written elsewhere contrary to what many of those in the “movement” espoused, the Supreme Court’s decision did not happen because “its time had come”. Rather, the court reviewed the factual foundation I lead through evidence at trial. That evidence revealed that while the politicians in 1969 claimed to have created a system which allowed access to medical assistance to have the abortion procedure, in the real world, all but a privileged few were denied access. The Court then agreed with the legal argument advanced that this system breached the Charter’s protection in section 7, the right to life, liberty and security of the person, and did not do so in accordance with principles of fundamental justice. The court found that in view of the harsh reality of the evidence presented at trial, the Criminal Code provision was being applied in an unfair, arbitrary and discriminatory manner and therefore could not withstand Charter scrutiny.

What few realized was that after the jury’s decision to acquit at trial, the political desire to appeal that acquittal to the Court of Appeal led the way to the Supreme Court of Canada being able to strike down the law. It was after all, the perfect irony. When the jury refused to convict, the government, rather than listening to the will of the majority and accepting their judgment, appealed the acquittal and opened the door for me to present to the Ontario Court of Appeal and ultimately to the Supreme Court of Canada, the legal arguments based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that the trial judge had rejected. Many today can be thankful for political motivation driving towards that legal decision.

January 27th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
_________________
Hall Monitor of the Shadowy Group^TM
The most effective way to stifle democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: activist judges, human rights tribunals, parliamentary committees, civil service bureaucrats and political party hacks.

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