Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - March 13, 1979, Winnipeg, Manitoba 1 i in r Winnipeg free March 1979 abortion Battle getting hotter by Steve Whysall every Abor Tion kills an unborn human whose life is arbitrarily and unjustly treated As thus it Vio lates the a first Basic of All human in Plain denial of simple jus pro abortionist a woman faced with the problem of an unwanted pregnancy must have the Freedom to choose whether to continue or to have a Legal the right of the child to live is greater than and supersedes any right that a woman May have to the privacy of her own body unplanned pregnancies Are a health As Well As a social anti abortionist More Funda the right to life itself and abortion destroys the body and the life of another human it is now 10 years since Canadas criminal code was changed to permit abortion under certain Circum and possibly the most con emotional de Bate of the decade was born debate Over the right of an unborn child to versus the right of a woman to terminate an unwanted More polarized Over the years the pro and anti abortion movements have grown More More vocal but they Are now also More clearly having formed their own social service educational and political in tension Between the two movements is partly because of a sudden growth in pro antiabortion and partly because the pro abortionists Are step Ping up their demands for abortions to be made More easily during the past year membership of the antiabortion Manitoba league for life organization has jumped to More than and the group has opened nine new this being the year of the the league plans to stage a festival of the child conference in Winnipeg in and More than 500 prolife delegates from across Canada Are expected to while the political wings of the prolife movement coalition for life and Alliance against abortion Are finding politicians More pre pared to the appointment of prominent Winnipeg obstetrical and gynaecologist Paul Adams As pres ident of the Canadian physicians for life association has further boosted the prolife cause in the medical Community the antiabortion and the pro abortion groups disagree consistently on most facts about fetal life pro abortionist opponents of abortion Law repeal appear to Centre their concern for life on fetal they do not seem to consider the Fate of unwanted children produced by compulsory anti abortionist most unwanted pregnancies become wanted some wanted pregnancies become unwanted unloved babies some times become dearly loved and vice to make the Assumption that because a woman is unwillingly preg the child in every in most cases or in even Many will be unwanted and therefore neglected and abused is totally inaccurate and wildly pro abortionist one often hears the glib slogan adoption not Abor those who hold this View Are either unaware of or indifferent to the trauma of giving up a child for anti abortionist every child a wanted child should be completed with and if not killed for that is exactly what that planned parenthood slogan pro abortionist advocates of compulsory childbirth often make the claim that women who seek and obtain abortions suffer grave psycho logical and this is refuted by the eminent psychiatrist Wendell Walters after a thorough and painstaking analysis of Many stated a woman is at greater risk to her mental health when she is refused a Safe Legal if that is what she really than if she is granted anti abortionist serious mental disorders arise More often in women with previous mental thus the very women for whom Legal Abor Tion is considered justified on psychiatric grounds Are the ones who have the highest risk of pos abortion psychiatric disorders the world health pro abortionist the opponents of Freedom of Choice often link free a Cess to abortion with what they term a progressive deterioration of respect for life in leading to the advocacy of euthanasia and other nazi in no country in the world has legalized although 64 per cent of the worlds population live in countries where abortion is anti abortionist a few paediatric ians in 1939 in Germany began to terminate a few idiot they were pure blood but by these Sam Doc tors in University hospitals had so lowered the Price tag that they were killing bed children with misshapen ears and those with learn ing and so the debate killing life while pro lifers argue it is incorrect to Call the majority of abortions being done nowadays therapeutic since the doctor is not trying to save but killing pro abortionists maintain unplanned pregnancies Are a health As As a social meanwhile the Manitoba Prabor Tion led by the local Branch of the Canadian association for the repeal of the abortion Law has been campaigning for a special clinic in downtown Winni Peg to do As Well As offer ing family planning and pregnancy the clinic idea is supported several a key supporter of the clinic proposal is John head of the health sciences Centre and University of Manitoba depart ment of obstetrics and about abortions a year Are done in at the health sciences Centre most of the others Are done at Tyson said the Hsc cannot Cope with the demand and he has other reasons for wanting to see a special abortion clinic growing support for prolife cause fuels debate about abortion d he is concerned about statistics that suggest women a year 54 per cent of those wanting abortions Are going out of the usually to the United to have an d he is concerned that Manitoba has the highest rate of complications associated with abortions of All prov in Canada As a whole it is three per compared to 11 per cent Here he blames the High rate partly on the the delay Here before women can get an d he is concerned that Manitoba has the highest rate in Canada of women having a second and third the league for life is fighting the clinic proposal and has said Al though the Brief presented by Caral proposes a birth control and pregnancy counselling it is obvious that its overriding preoccupation is with providing facilities wherein abortions would be More readily acceptable and exp the controversial abortion clinic proposal is expected to bring to a head the growing tension Between the pro and there is also growing uneasiness Between some pro abortion and antiabortion pregnancy counselling while the pro abortion agencies accuse the anti abortionists of holding onto girls until its too late for them to get a Safe the antiabortion groups criticize the pro abortionists for counselling girls into having there is also growing friction be tween the two movements Over the used of the word health in the criminal which specifies that an abortion can Only be performed if continuation of a pregnancy would be like to endanger a woman life or in health authorities tend to accept the world health organizations definition of health As a Complete state of mental and social and not merely the absence of disease or an exception is the Grace Hospital which applies the salvation army allowing abortion for med but not social the antiabortion groups maintain that by who everybody can be said to be sick and they want the word health Given a stricter the led by Are not Only pressing the Federal government to adopt the who definition of they Are also campaigning for abortion to be taken out of the criminal code Alto Steve Whysall is a staff writer with the free Little change seen in South Africa by William Gould after a 16month i recently returned to South curious to see if had in the past few government officials have pledged to move away from policies of racial discriminant is Clear now that they intended Only superficial such As doing away with Petty apartheid segregation in air first class hotels and other High visibility Public places frequented by International even that gesture has been less than for i saw the same Whites Only signs on taxis and restrooms that a encountered in the essence of the official govern ment policy is As before Blacks Are temporary sojourners in South without political or civil even concessions that seem to undercut that policy Are for the government is behind legislation that would give Blacks the right to have 99year leaseholds on real property in common or White As John Kan Eberman observed in his recent Sowe the right to Purchase property is not regarded As synonymous with the right to occupy because of Laws restricting the free movement of Blacks in those open to Blacks the Law now reserves less than three percent of the jobs in South Africa for and White Trade unions have been pressed to open new jobs for but their Access to apprenticeship remains As one Leader of the White amalgamated engineering Union told me i will decide when Blacks Are to be apprent they be at ease in these Black Trade unions Are but government policy remains opposed to so there is Little incentive for White management to Deal with multinational corporations some companies among them have been encouraged to deny Black Union demands until government study commissions come up with recommendations and perhaps even changes in the none of the commissions have yet submitted this government and Busi Ness hostility has contributed to Dis sension and disharmony in the ranks of the Bla Kunion which is even More splintered than what i saw in most revealing was the Frank admission by some government officials that they Welcome integration oriented codes of conduct for multinationals because publicity about the codes has helped forestall economic most Black South african workers still live in slums such As this or in single sex hostels sanctions against South the european economic Community code is but is not monitored by any member nation except multinationals have available to them the so called Sullivan a guide for fair employment practices drawn up by the Leon a Black pastor from Philadelphia who is on the Board of general Only on third of companies in South Africa Are signatories to that and even their compliance is monitored Only by voluntary responses to a questionnaire that is so Bland and generalized As to be for it asks have you established a comprehensive proce Dure for handling individual employee complaints on a nondiscriminatory basis most respondents answer although the Sullivan code is arguably its priorities Are emphasizing such things As desegregation of dining and toilet facilities rather than the Funda mental problems of Black crime flourishes thus a company will report spend ing thousands of dollars on the re modelling of previously segregated restrooms for Black migrant workers off the must stay in dehumanizing for 11 months of the they stay in the overcrowd single sex compounds where virtually every form of criminality the Law permits them to travel out of the homelands Only to not to live they must leave their families the dissidents who were imprisoned in 1977 and 1978 Are being re leased and Are organizing and will not be appeased by voluntary guidelines and political it is not too late for a firm commitment from the United As a first the Carter administration at least could apply pressure at on the and put the Force of Law behind their employment practices a legally binding and effectively monitored code of conduct would be an encouraging first William Gould is a lawyer who recently participated in a human rights conference in Cape the los Angeles times estate tax problem raised by charges Sidney greens charges about the handling of taxes owed by the estate of former conservative la Earl Mckellar Are probably the most serious that can be brought against any they Are that the present government not Only played favourites in a tax but at tempted to hide what it was Green says the government invited Mckellard widow to Appeal an assessment levied by the former nip then reduced the assessment by ministerial discretion in order to avoid the publicity that would have occurred had an ordering Council been such orders Are automatically made chosen words Green has chosen his words with characteristic and the impress Ion left is that the conservative government is once More taking care of its because part of what he has said that there has been a reassessment is and because the Case has not been it is not easy for finance minister Don Craik to Issue a Blanket denial of the but part of what Green says is not Mckellar was never invited by the after it had abolished estate to Appeal an earlier she had Al ready appealed the assessment to the former three months before the election was Al though the former legislation required the minister responsible to Deal with appeals nothing had been done by the time the govern ment and the Mckellar Case was one of a handful of such appeals co wind up on the desk of the new minister As unfinished the Appeal was almost a classic Case of the Type often used by critics of estate taxes to illustrate How unfair such taxes although it had been a family farm in the True sense of the everything was in the husbands including a Quarter Section of land Accord ing to the had been purchased with joint funds when Mckel Lar was working As a the original assessment treated the whole estate As being the personal gain of the As if Mckellar had made no contribution Cleverley 1 when Craik reassessed the he allowed the Quarter Section As joint the result was that Al though Mckellar did not owe in she still owed the rub in the situation is that Mckellar has not yet accepted the it is possible the Case might go to if it the whole question of a wife contribution to a family farm will have to be dealt one can Given the Dps position on family that Green could find himself arguing that Mckellar not Only owns half of the Quarter but half of the whole in which Case she might avoid any estate tax at no sympathy it is precisely because of these situations that including the nip stronghold of have seen fit to get out of estate while in greens it May be hard to feel sorry for anyone who inherits More than the old estate tax exemption of is it not hard to feel sorry for who because of a mix up in land titles is automatically deprived of the benefits of a lifetime of work estate taxes had a place in Canada before the Days of taxes on capital the Federal government acted correctly in vacating the estate tax Field when it imposed the first capital gains even before this the Feder Al government had a Blanket exemption for wealth that passed Between husband and recognizing the contribution that wives make to their husbands net some provinces held on to the double taxation provi Sion for varying periods of Manitoba got out last in the last year of Manitoba estate a full third of the taxed estates involved farm Only a few of these would fall into the Rich Cate gory that was the supposed target of the ;