An interesting video for pastors who are thinking of participating in the 40 Days for Life but might have some questions or concerns. Enjoy!

As of this August 5, the government of Quebec intends to fully subsidize "assisted procreation" (procéation assistée). There's almost nothing right about this move.

First of all, the Quebec government is confused in its use of terminology: it lumps in many things under the rubric "assisted procreation" that don’t belong together. And with damaging results: for in vitro fertilisation (IVF), which is covered under this new program is not a fertility treatment per se, because it doesn't increase fertility--it's doesn't repair or treat the reproductive organs; rather, it creates a human being artificially. This has huge ethical implications which they are trying to hide behind the label "fertility treatment", the same way some people try to hide the ethical implications of abortion behind the words "contraception" or even "reproductive health".

So the use of dubious terminology to cloud the ethical debate concerning IVF is bad enough. Now, if we separate the real fertility treatments (hormone therapies, etc.) from the IVF, we can address their deficiencies separately.

The hormone treatments are bad because they are 1) expensive and 2) reinforce the idea that a child is "owed" and so "property". There is no "right to have a child". But by forcing all taxpayers to pay for expensive fertility treatments, we are creating this de facto right to have a child, and thus reinforcing the idea that a child is some-thing that can be given from one person to another---a piece of property.

But free IVF is the worst aspect of this government "health" initiative. What's wrong with IVF? First of all, during the process of coming up with a viable embryo for implantation into the carrier's womb, some of the excess embryos that are produced are eliminated. IVF is therefore an abortive process that kills human beings. Next, because the embryo results not from the total self-giving of two loving spouses but from a laboratory intervention in a clinical setting, it reduces a human being to being somebody's property, again, owed to a couple because of some kind of "right" to have a child.

A child just isn't property, to be manufactured by the government at taxpayers' expense and handed over to whomever feels they want a child. A child isn't there to fulfill your needs, but rather you should be there for it. But IVF reinforces the mentality that the child is your property, and that it is there to fulfill your needs.

To top it all off, we’ll be faced with the irony that while every year starting Aug. 5 thousands of infertile couples (inculding gay / lesbian "couples") from Quebec (and elsewhere!) will be seeking expensive treatments (at a cost of 80 million a year overall) to "acquire" their children, 30,000 women across the hospital corridor, so to speak, will be killing their perfectly viable and healthy unborn children through abortion, again at taxpayer's expense.

Bolduc argued that this program will help increase Quebec’s moribund birth rate, but the laudable end doesn't justify the means he proposes, for the reasons given above. But I think that he's politically and philosophically unable to deal with the real reasons Quebec has a low birthrate: the breakup of the family, rampant nihilism, hedonism and egoism, lack of hope, lack of religion, lack of a moral compass.

Real Estate for Life donates vital funding to pro-life organizations at absolutely no cost to you. Real Estate For Life was founded by Dave Theisen, who has over twenty years of experience in International and Domestic Real Estate. With these sort of credentials, you are assured of getting an excellent agent.

It's really very simple; you or a friend or family member is looking to buy or sell a house anywhere in the United States or Canada. You call Real Estate For Life on

1-877-LIFE-US1 (that's 1-877-543-3871)

and we set you up with an expert agent with a proven track-record from a company such as Remax or Century21. This agent is happy to get new business and so, when the sale is completed, give a portion of their fee to Real Estate For Life as a referral fee. Real Estate For Life gives 80% of that fee to Quebec Life Coalition.

On a house with a value of $150,000, that means $1000 dollars goes to Quebec Life Coalition - all without costing you a penny! Real Estate For Life is a great way to not only get a superb agent, but also to help Quebec Life Coalition at no cost to you!

Don't delay - call 1-877-LIFE-US1 today!

It's time to remind the Quebec government that euthanasia is always wrong.

Let’s keep euthanasia and assisted suicide out of Quebec.

On May 25, 2010 the Quebec government announced that it is soliciting feedback from Quebec citizens about whether euthanasia and assisted suicide are acceptable forms of “care”. Citizens of Quebec have until July 16, 2010 to provide this feedback to the government in one of three ways:

1. By putting down one’s thoughts about euthanasia and assisted suicide in the form of a written brief, submitted before July 16 by email (csmd@assnat.qc.ca) or by mail:

Laplante, Anik
Secrétaire
Édifice Pamphile-Le May
1035, rue des Parlementaires
3e étage, Bureau 3.15
Québec (Québec) G1A 1A3

2. By calling (418) 643-2722 and requesting a form to submit in order to be able to participate orally to the roving euthanasia consultation, without writing a brief.

3. By filling out an online questionnaire located at:

https://www.assnat.qc.ca/csmd/dyingwithdignit y.aspx

Whether Quebec goes down the road of euthanasia and assisted suicide is up to you.

WHAT EUTHANASIA IS

While normal end-of-life care involves eliminating pain so that the patient can die painlessly from natural causes (e.g. disease or old age), euthanasia involves deliberately killing a patient, prior to natural death, to eliminate pain. For example: a paraplegic who has many years to live but can’t stand the mental anguish of not having his full mobility and therefore asks a medical practitioner for a pill to end his life—that’s a case of euthanasia. However, a case of someone who dies from a disease (for example, from cancer) while under sedation (so that this person does not feel pain) is not euthanasia.

Nobody is against eliminating the pain when a patient is dying. But everyone should be against killing the patient as a means of eliminating mental or physical pain.

BUT WHAT ABOUT REFUSING TREATMENT?

Some people think they are for euthanasia because they are for allowing a patient to refuse treatment for a terminal illness when that treatment is judged disproportionate. For example, some would say: “If living means I have to be hooked up on life-support machines for months and months, then I would rather die.” However, refusing treatment in this case is not euthanasia. If you have cancer, and you refuse another painful chemotherapy session, and then you die, the cause of death is the cancer, not the medical practitioner or yourself.

We call it euthanasia when you or your medical practitioner intentionally causes your death, before your death is caused naturally by disease or by old age. And this is something everyone should be against, in every circumstance. Here’s why:

THREE REASONS WHY EUTHANASIA (KILLING THE PATIENT INSTEAD OF KILLING THE PAIN) IS ALWAYS WRONG

1. There is always a way out, even in the most complex cases. Ending the patient’s life is not a humane solution to tragic situations of pain and suffering: the physician’s duty is always to kill the pain, not the patient. There are no limits imposed on the physician’s means of relieving pain. The means are many, accessible, increasingly sophisticated and constantly developing. In extreme cases, heavy sedation that puts patients to sleep can even be a last resort to sustain them through their suffering, until death takes place from natural causes. In treating terminal cases, there are no obstacles to ending or foregoing treatments considered useless or disproportionate by the patient or the physician. There is always a way out, even in the most complex cases.

2. People who did not ask to die will be put to death. There are individuals who seriously or insistently ask for euthanasia or assisted suicide. They are very few in number. These requests are usually rooted in their personality and the need they feel to control their life—and their death. The vast majority of people in similar situations do not ask for life-shortening intervention. Individual freedom and autonomy end where they impinge on the freedom of other members of Society.

Changing the law to satisfy the demand of such a small number of people would imperil the lives of a much greater number who initially were not even aimed at. The experience of the few countries that have taken the route of euthanasia and assisted suicide shows that these practices soon become ungovernable despite the controls and guidelines put in place: protocols are not respected, consents are not obtained, the pressure exerted by families is strong and difficult to manage. People who have not asked to die are put to death.

3. Where euthanasia appears, quality end-of-life care disappears. Decriminalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide would create unwarranted pressure on the chronically ill, the severely disabled and those who require a lot of assistance or expensive treatments: The vulnerable could begin to think that they are an undue burden on their loved ones or on society and that they should consider euthanasia or assisted suicide. Euthanasia might well dangerously distort social attitudes toward the seriously ill, the disabled and the old.

So please consider participating in the consultation in one way or another. A lot a lives, and the quality of all lives here in Quebec, are at stake.

 FYI, this is very big:

On December 5 2009, the National Assembly unanimously adopted a motion to create a select committee on dyig with dignity. You are invited to participate in the major public debate the Parliament of Quebec will be holding this year as part of the Select Committee's mandate.

Beginning in late summer, the Select Committee will hold public hearings on dying with dignity, travelling to 11 towns and cities of Québec to meet with the public.

Voice your opinion on the various issues surrounding the question, including end-of-life care, euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Three ways to take part:

1) Submit a brief (any written document) by July 16th 2010

2) Send a request to be heard (by individuals only) by July 16th 2010

3) Complete the online questionnaire

The Committee will select the individuals and organizations it wishes to hear during the public hearings to be held in the following towns and cities:

Baie-Comeau, Gatineau, Gaspé, Montréal, Québec, Rimouski, Rouyn-Noranda, Saguenay, Saint-Jérôme, Sherbrooke and Trois-Rivières.

To read our consultation document, to attend the public hearings or for more information, go to: www.assnat.qc.ca

Contact person:

Anik Lapointe
Committee clerk
Parliament Building
1035, rue des Parlementaires
Québec (Québec)
G1A 1A3

Telephone: 418-643-2722
Fax: 418-643-0248
Email: csmd-at-assnat.qc.ca
Toll-free number: 1-866-337-8837

“I was an atheist for as long as I could remember” recalled Brigitte Bedard, a young-looking 41 year-old journalist and stay at home mother of six with cropped tousled brown hair and stylish thick-framed glasses. She was addressing a crowd of 200 participants at the Quebec Life Coalition pro-life conference on May 15 in Quebec City. Much less popular (or notorious) than the conference’s keynote speaker – Cardinal Marc Ouellet – whose staunchly pro-life statements made later that afternoon were seized on by the ravenously anti-life Quebec media, Ms. Bedard might be the speaker that most touched hearts that Saturday afternoon.

Ms. Bedard grew up at a time when Quebec society was undergoing what historians call the “Quiet Revolution”, a period of time from the early-sixties to the mid seventies when Quebec society shed its Christian heritage and adopted secular values. “I was born in 1968—talk about bad luck” she joked. She had a typical childhood in a non-religious household, and went to the notoriously leftist Université du Québec à Montréal, where she studied literature, eventually graduating with an MA. “I filled my mind with all the radical feminist literature—I drank it all up” she said. She began a series of heterosexual relationships, which all ended badly. “Prodded along by what I was reading, I began thinking that since all my heterosexual relationships were failures, that I might be a lesbian.” And in fact she dove into the lesbian lifestyle, and admitted that she reveled in it for quite some time. “It was actually a very good time, in a way, being with a big gang of girls, tearing up the town, chain-smoking like there was no tomorrow. I was also very sexually active.”

Despite the fun and the excitement of the lifestyle, she felt broken, she recalls. “I was a mental wreck. I just felt that I was spinning out of control, that I was keeping appearances but I was miserable inside.” Things came to a head when, inexplicably, she broke into tears one night at 3 am and began shouting in her empty apartment in a trendy district of Montreal, imploring God to “take her away.” “Here I was, a militant feminist lesbian atheist lying on my apartment floor crying my head off imploring God. I wasn’t in my right mind, but I was desperate for help.”

She began seeking help, meandering in and out of countless 12-step type programs, in the hopes of finding some kind of solution for her anxiety and “messed-up life.” To make matters worse, she had just quit smoking: “I was suddenly forced to face life in the raw, without any protection or buffer.”

At wit’s end, she recounted how someone she knew talked about visiting “the monks” at at the famous Saint-Benoît Abbey in Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, Quebec. The idea, as bizarre as it seemed to her, intrigued her, and she went, but not without reservations. “I went to the monastery armed with all the contempt and hatred for the patriarchal Church that I had stored up from years of radical feminist studies. For radical feminists the Church is basically enemy #1.” She entered the convent and was assigned a room and a monk with whom she could converse twice a day. “For three days in a row, two hours a day, I badgered, screamed at, practically foamed at the mouth in the face of this monk, dredging up basically every insult, cliché, dirty thing that I could think of, or invent about Christianity. I was so mad, so hurt and angry, and I was dishing it all out to this monk, who never said a word the whole time, but instead just looked at me, nodding his head.” Then, at the end of those three days, something happened that changed her life forever. “It was the third day, the sixth hour of screaming. We were about to wrap up yet again. I was basically done screaming, there was a pause, and then the monk looked up and said to me “you have no idea, absolutely no idea how much God loves you; He made you out of nothing, he knows you, you have no idea how much he loves you, His daughter. So don’t feel ashamed, let it all go. Give it up, give it all up, give your life up to Him …He loves you so much.”

Those simple words at that crucial time “absolutely floored her” she recalled. From that moment on, her life had utterly changed. “I am His daughter, there are no two ways about it, and I can’t explain it.” She admits she is at pains to explain exactly what it was that caused her conversion: “I just say that God floored me, staggered me; I didn’t convert myself, he brought me to Him.”

She now works as an independent journalist and happily married stay-at-home mother of six. Life for her now is not all peaches and cream, however. “When I need quiet, there’s nothing I can do except for one thing: get up at 4 am. Which I do, pretty often, just to get some peace.” Remarking on the differences between her life now and in her lesbian days, she quipped: “Living with a man is definitely a pain, but living with a woman all the time was a living hell.”

Brigitte Bedard, who writes for the Nouvel Informateur Catholique, was one of four conference participants (plus keynote speaker Cardinal Marc Ouellet) at the annual Quebec Life Coalition conference at Quebec City on May 15. Video recordings of the talks (in original French, or dubbed in English) are available through Quebec Life Coalition (www.cqv.qc.ca).

I didn't want to prevent anyone from attending the first pro-life conference in Quebec since 2004, and the first Quebec Life Coalition conference in Quebec City. That's why we've changed the conference format, and we've changed the price to ... ZERO dollars. That's right, if you've already paid, we'll refund your ticket. We believe it's so important for the most people possible to attend, that we want you, and your friends, and your acquaintances --anyone you think is pro-life-- to come and backup one of the only prominent Quebec public figures to stand up for the unborn: Cardinal Marc Ouellet. 

All you need to do is send us an email and write "I'll be there" in the subject line. That'll give us an idea of the number of people who will be attending.

According to the author of "Voix de faits", a Quebec anarchist blog, the 2010 QLC conference in Quebec city is the first time for a long, long time (if ever) that "the catholic hierarchy has openly associated itself with the reactionary and activist wing of the Quebec anti-choice movement." Translated in plain English, that means that for the first time in recent memory, one of the biggest pro-life players in the province has decided once again to take up the fight for the unborn with us in the trenches, in the public square. And it's at the QLC 2010 May 15 Quebec-city conference that this is happening! This is an amazing story, an answer to our prayers!

That's why you absolutely have to be there, rain or shine!

We noticed that the previous format for this conference wasn't good for people coming from out of town. That's why we've modified the schedule, and here it is (the conference will be held on Saturday, May 15 in the "Des Plaines" hall of the "hôtel Château Laurier" in Québec (1220 Place George-V Ouest, Québec, QC G1R 5B8‎ - (418) 522-8108):

All presentations will be translated in English via headset.

      12:30 PM  admission to conference
      12:45 PM  coffee / snacks
      1:00 PM Prayer, and introduction (Georges Buscemi and guest)
      1:15 PM #1 Raymond De Souza
      1:30 PM #1 Raymond De Souza
      1:45 PM #1 Questions
      2:00 PM  pause 
      2:15 PM #2 Luc Phaneuf
      2:30 PM #2 Luc Phaneuf
      2:45 PM #2 Questions
      3:00 PM  pause
      3:15 PM #3 Brigitte Bédard
      3:30 PM #3 Brigitte Bédard
      3:45 PM #3 Questions
      4:00 PM  pause
      4:15 PM #4 Michel Lizotte
      4:30 PM #4 Michel Lizotte
      4:45 PM #4 Questions
      5:00 PM  pause
      5:15 PM #5 Cardinal Ouellet
      5:30 PM #5 Cardinal Ouellet
      5:45 PM #5 Questions
      6:00 PM  Georges Buscemi (concluding remarks)
      6:15 PM  END
      6:30 PM

So now there's nothing keeping anyone from participating. The cost of the conference depends on your donation, if you want, or if you can't, it doesn't matter: what's important is that you show up!

For those of you who prayed with us during the 40 Days for Life, what were we praying for, exactly? I know that one of my main prayer intentions was for the Christian community in Quebec to take a stand and take the lead in the pro-life battle. And now we're seeing that the top-ranking member of the catholic church in Canada is joining us in our battle, and taking all sorts of media abuse in defence of the unborn. This is a new page in Quebec's history. We can't take this for granted; we have to seize this moment.

That's why I'm urgently inviting you and your friends and pro-life acquaintances to this conference. You don't want to "all alike begin to make excuses" like the invited guests to the Lord's "supper" in Luke 14:16-24. We were waiting for a change in Quebec, some kind of sign that a thaw was coming, that spring was near. And now we have it. It's time to come to the "supper" this May 15!

To help us estimate the number of attendees, just send us an email with "I'll be there" in the subject line. If you're bringing along friends, let us know.

If you look at all the elements converging on this conference, you really get a sense that something is brewing: bill C-510 introduced by Rod Bruinooge, the Conservative Party of Canada's G8 maternal health plan that doesn't include abortion, the controversial withdrawal of funding from feminist groups in Quebec and elsewhere, Cardinal Ouellet's foray into the euthanasia and abortion debates last Saturday, gay lobbyists demonstating on May 15 in Quebec City against "homophobia"... and then there's us, on May 15 in Quebec City standing up for the unborn with Cardinal Ouellet. You can't afford to miss this!

Also, don't forget to forward this great news--let's get the word out!

A chartered bus for the Ottawa March for Life will depart from across the street of Montreal's downtown central station (935 de la Gauchetière West) on Thursday, May 13 at 7:15 AM and will return to Montreal at the same location for about 6 PM. Round-trip tickets are $30 per ticket. To reserve call Quebec Life Coalition at (514) 344-2686.