Does justice depend on the topic at hand? Brian Lilley takes a look at the treatment given G8/G20 protestors versus Linda Gibbons, still serving time for protesting outside an abortion clinic.

Ontario has no bubble-zone law that restricts free speech outside of abortion clinics. There is no permanent injunction in place for this particular clinic either. The one put in place by long-ago attorney-general Marion Boyd was supposed to be a short-term measure. It has stuck and been enforced by police ever since.

If a similar attempt to shut down free speech outside of a legislature or city hall or even a gathering of world leaders had taken place, there would be an uproar. The civil liberties groups would demand the law be overturned. There would be daily warnings about Canada turning into a police state. Opposition politicians at the federal and provincial level would demand answers.

All of that did happen when there was an attempt to shut down free speech at the G20 summits. Why the silence in the case of Linda Gibbons?

An article from The New York Times about women, their differences and how they vote, contrasting Sarah Palin with Emily’s List (a political action group that aims to get pro-abortion women into office). I like this part:

Women are divided but not by gender — the old saw that women must stick together doesn’t work anymore, if it ever did — nor necessarily split by party. They are polarized, like the nation, between the growing conservative-independent camp and the liberal-progressive bloc led by the political classes — or more simply, between insiders and outsiders. And this is the time for the outsiders.

I’m also keenly interested in the California election:

But it is the marquee race in California between Senator Barbara Boxer, a three-term Democrat and longtime feminist, and Carly Fiorina, the anti-abortion former Hewlett-Packard executive endorsed by Ms. Palin, that will most rigidly test who holds sway: Sarah Palin or Emily’s List.

In all this, it’s intriguing to me that a Sarah Palin endorsement still holds sway. Works for me, particularly when we are talking about life issues.

I’m having a hard time wondering whether this headline is deliberately facetious:

News Flash: Mandatory waiting periods for abortion are related to higher rates of unintended teen births.

Really.

You don’t need to be pro-life to donate to the Faith and Freedom Alliance, through which John Carpay, a Calgary-based lawyer, can continue to defend the rights of pro-lifers to voice their views on campus as he has done so effectively in the past.

Here’s a recent Interim interview with John.

Those interested in supporting campus free speech should make a cheque payable to “Faith and Freedom Alliance” and mail it to John Carpay.

What she said. I don’t think there’s anything in this column by Jakki Jeffs that I disagree with.

An interesting book review in today’s Globe:

Mr. Brog, in his In Defense of Faith: The Judeo-Christian Idea and the Struggle for Humanity, concedes that Christians have committed horrendous crimes in the name of theology but sets out to prove that Judeo-Christian beliefs gave the Western and, ultimately, entire world its most important spiritual value: an obligatory reverence for life.

Mr. Brog advances his argument in a series of historical vignettes. He introduces Tacitus, the Roman senator and historian, who (in his major work, Histories) describes the Jews as wicked, stubborn and lascivious and lists the Jewish beliefs he finds most revolting – especially, he says, the belief “that it is a deadly sin to kill an unwanted child.” The Romans were “proud practitioners of infanticide.” As were the Greeks. As were the other nations of the ancient world.

The value we place on life is a values judgment, ever evolving. What was established (life is sacred) can easily be torn down, and one could argue, has been substantially in recent years. Over to you, Tacitus!

So often, it’s not the pregnancy that’s the problem. In this depressing article from England, it’s binge drinking, followed by one night stands, followed by deep regret, sometimes followed by pregnancy and then abortion. I suppose you could say “it could happen to anyone” but it’s happening more and more, which makes for a trend, which means we are raising our girls wrong. Bigger problems.

A quick column on child care.

I’m going to be writing a talk about the myths of what it means to be pro-life. If you have a favourite, please let me know. Things like “pro-lifers are all men” or “pro-lifers are all religious” or “religious people are all pro-life”–that kind of thing. Merci.

If you read this blog, you already knew about the link between abortion and subsequent preterm delivery. It’s information worth repeating.