...After the sentencing, Knapp said Bryan was scared of being a bad father.
"One day he just snapped," she told the Chronicle Herald. "The only way he could get rid of the baby was to get rid of both of us."
...I cannot work anymore, I can't walk properly, I lost my son (who) was my future. My mother has had to give up her entire life so she could take care of me, because I can't take care of myself anymore."
Why don't we dispose of any pretense, and get the powers that be to name the CBC as the Liberal party's official communication team?
The CBC is unique -- and therefore uniquely accountable to its viewers -- because it is funded by the state. As such, it has a particular mandate to present the Canadian story...
...The CBC ombudsman is apparently looking into the incident, but it isn't likely to be the transparent investigation that is needed to truly serve the public good.
There has been no word of any investigation within the Liberal party.
Yet, all of them remain on the public payroll...
Tacked on the fridge of the battered green house was an image from a recent ultrasound of Hoeppner's fetus, showing hair, and a photo of her one-year-old son. Hoeppner wanted to regain custody of him from the foster home where he lives.
Imam Shakir is being disingenuous and playing to the cultural/moral relativists, of which there seem to be plenty.
Aqsa Parvez's death was an "honor" killing, and "honor" killings will never be properly addressed if people aren't even willing to admit to what they are. They are a form of domestic violence, but a very specific form, with different roots, different triggers, different modus operandi, and different ways of preventing them...
"... I felt disappointed by the Labour Party. I had joined them originally because, in my mind, social democrats stood for reform. They sought to improve people's lives; they cared about suffering, which I thought should have meant they would care about the suffering of Muslim women. But in reality, the Labour Party in Holland appeared blinded by multiculturalism, overwhelmed by the imperative to be sensitive and respectful of immigrant culture, defending the moral relativists..."
...it's clear that Lapierre is "a very troubled young man. I must admit I was a little puzzled to see he was discharged," she said.
She said when mental health legislation was changed, community supports were to be put in place. "I would claim there is not nearly enough," she said.
"Families are in a difficult position because of the current mental health legislation," she said. "They can encourage and support, but they have no capacity to have someone detained."
She said the original intent of changes made more than a decade ago to the Mental Health Act was "to ensure over-containment of people with mental health issues doesn't happen.
"Maybe the legislation, in some cases goes, beyond what was originally intended."
"I knew he was off the wall,'' a shaken Paul La Pierre said outside court yesterday before his 22-old-son made his first appearance.
"I realized the severity of the situation. He'd been using insane language and acting like he was a victim of everything.''
In the past year and half, he's been hospitalized four times, he said. Three of those times were at the Grand River Hospital psychiatric ward. He was released just five or six weeks ago.
"We fought,'' his father said. "He was always released.
"We said, 'Look, we don't think he's ready.' But he was self-admitted. They couldn't hold him. This is totally unnecessary. It could have been prevented.''
'On Tuesday morning, he had made his son visit his psychiatrist.
"They released him with a different prescription."
He was so worried about his son's recent erratic behaviour, he called a cab to take him to the hospital later that day...
...The Tahirs say that days after she moved in with them, Mr. and Ms. Parvez came over, and both families had a two hour meeting with Aqsa.
Her mother cried. Mr. Parvez calmly implored his daughter in Punjabi to tell him why she left and what he could do to bring her home. Aqsa barely spoke, except to say that she "just wanted change," according to Ms. Tahir. Privately Aqsa told her that she wanted "to get more out of life".
Mr. Parvez appeared to be relieved that his daughter was safe, said Ms. Tahir, and not alone on the street. He was content to see Aqsa living in a household that resembled his own, said Ms. Tahir, and told her to stay as long as she needed to. Aqsa asked if she could bring items from her house back, and he said they would arrange that "together."
"That's how he left," said Ms. Tahir, an immigration and paralegal consultant who immigrated from Pakistan 10 years ago.
But Aqsa, it seemed, was still searching for independence.
A few days after that first meeting, over coffee in Tim Hortons, Aqsa told her father that she wanted to live on her own, she wanted to go to school in the mornings and work in the evenings. Mr. Parvez offered to let her take over the basement. Aqsa said she would think about it...
Aqsa did not have a boyfriend, said Ms. Tahir, who expressed dismay at the "rumours" in the press, including speculation that it was conflict over wearing the hijab that triggered the alleged murder.
The Tahirs did not know of any dispute over Aqsa wearing a hijab and said that the older Parvez sisters did not always wear the head scarf.
"You can't call a public inquiry Mike, and then have an election before we get to the bottom of the matter..."
Karlheinz Schreiber is in the spotlight for money he gave former Tory prime minister Brian Mulroney, but when it comes to contributions to political parties, he appears to have given significantly more to the Liberal Party of Canada.
"A future child? NO! It's a CHILD with a FUTURE!"
In short, many Canadians' moral intuition is that "there ought to be a law" -- or laws -- protecting fetuses from some harms, although we don't all agree on what those laws should be, especially in the context of abortion. Presently in Canada, there is no express abortion law.
But willful blindness is not an ethical approach to dealing with abortion.
Seeing the fetus as an unborn victim of crime strips away the medical cloak that abortion places on the taking of its life, a cloak that dulls our moral intuition as to what is involved. It causes us to see the fetus as what it is, an early human life. Those who support abortion must be able to square that fact with their belief that abortion is ethical in certain circumstances.
A "Fetal Pain Awareness Act," similar to those some American states have enacted, could require a physician to inform the woman, before performing an abortion, that scientific evidence suggests that after 20 weeks gestation the fetus can feel pain. Furthermore, she would have to be offered anaesthesia for the fetus, which it would be her choice to take or decline. This type of law would not prohibit abortion; rather, its goal is to try to prevent the fetus from dying in excruciating pain. After all, even jurisdictions that allow capital punishment prohibit certain forms of it on the grounds that they are cruel. Likewise, we have criminal laws that protect animals from brutal treatment.
...There is no rule that says democratic governments must make diplomatic protests every time other democratic governments pursue substantive justice differently, even when the consequences are serious. If one day abortion becomes illegal in Montana, Canadians would rightly be angry were the governor of Montana to ask our prime minister to stop an abortion that a Montana woman was having in Ontario...- Michael Tweyman, Toronto
...In declining, for once, to pervert due process in a fellow democracy on behalf of a multiple killer who has enjoyed over 20 additional years of comfortable life beyond those of his victims, our government has shown a small glimmer of comprehension -- this is what Joe Citizen calls common sense.- David Salter, Stoney Creek, Ont.
This editorial properly belongs in the Toronto Star, where it would sit comfortably alongside all the other human rights caterwauling...
...In the case of a first degree murder conviction, a life sentence should mean a life sentence, and the only chance for release is if new evidence points to a wrongful conviction.- Douglas L. Martin, Hamilton, Ont.
The arguments from Michael Coren, Father de Souza and Thomas Armstrong concerning the rights of fetuses are emotionally stirring, but specious; in all the cases cited, the pregnant woman was attacked resulting in her murder or attempted murder. So whether or not the fetus dies, our criminal endures no greater or lesser sentence with or without any change to the law governing a fetus's status.
According to the Supreme Court of Canada, no one can infringe upon a mother's rights, even to protect a fetus. Yet the law frequently infringes on individual rights to prevent society from paying some bigger bills down the road--i.e., the requirement to wear a seat belt.
Without raising the question of "fetal personhood" setting new legal precedents, it appears obvious that society can and should intervene by legislating against behaviour deemed contrary to society's best interests. Perhaps another kick at this legal can of worms is required-- but from a different angle.
Letter-writer Thomas Armstrong is right that the fetus has no rights. It is his contentment with this that is the problem. The unscientific and anti-intellectual state of Canadian law in this matter leaves us to consider the following conundrum: A premature baby born at 26 weeks gestation is backed by the full power of Canadian law, yet an unborn baby at 40 weeks gestation -- more than three months older -- has no rights, and can be aborted or declared a non-person if stillborn from a birth misadventure (Sullivan-Lemay midwife decision).
Pro-life advocates are often accused, wrongly, of wishing to "turn back the clock." In fact, Canada's legal position on the fetus derives from the "born-alive" element of English common law, and dates from the '80s. That is, the 1480s.
...Can we not be honest and once and for all admit that if you want your pregnancy you are having a baby and if you do not want your pregnancy, you are hosting a bunch of cells/mass of tissues? That they are in fact one and the same, and that it is the perception of the mother that differs, nothing else...
...The desire to maintain our permissive abortion regime should not prevent the criminal law from addressing the reality of crimes against pregnant women. A crime against an expectant mother is something different -- there is real trauma to the mother, if she survives the violence, resulting from the injury or death to her child -- to say nothing of the child. The Roxanne Fernando case makes it all the more clear; without the child, there would have been no crime. The law should not have to pretend otherwise.
While the woman and her baby were both killed, police can only lay one charge of murder.
"The law in Canada doesn't allow for the killing of an unborn fetus," Grinton said.
So what's the solution? Directions to Crowns requiring real bail terms and appointment of enough Justices of the Peace to make sure bail is dealt with thoroughly and quickly are happening at the provincial level. Federally, we need to expedite the approval of bail reform which has stalled in Parliament. Sensible changes to the Bill have been suggested, but the basic terms of the reform are sound and should not be delayed. Both the province and the federal government are working to increase legal aid so people accused of crimes get to present their cases properly.
“Mrs. Panghali and her unborn child have had their lives taken prematurely and very tragically. This type of crime defies comprehension and the value of human life.”
The committee members stated that the bill “clearly” violated the Constitution including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
