Magic Statistics

Last weekend Eritrean security forces entered a Presbyterian church and detained the pastor and 80 members of the congregation.  The raid occurred at the end of the Sunday worship service at Mehrete Yesus Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Asmara.

Following the raid Pastor Zecharias Abraham and around 80 of his parishioners were detained. Among the worshippers on the day were some foreign nationals at least three of them Americans.

Mehret Yesus Church was one of the few churches that had escaped the decree that closed down all churches not belonging to the Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran Churches of Eritrea, five years ago. At the time of his detention Reverend Zecharias was serving as the current head of the Eritrean Evangelical Alliance, following the arrest of Haile Naizghi who was detained in May 2004.

Four days after the arrests, the Americans were allowed to leave, on condition that they do not teach or preach.  At last report, Rev Zecharias, church elder Mikias Mekonnen, and an unknown number of others remain in custody.

Only days earlier, the government announced the appointment of a new patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Eritrea.  Priests, monks, and members of the church reject the appointment as illegitimate and contrary to the church’s constitution.

In direct violation of the church’s canon laws, the Asmara government stripped ordained Eritrean Patriarch Abune Antonios of his ecclesiastical authority in August 2005, after he protested the imprisonment of three priests from the Medhane Alem Orthodox Church.

The government replaced him with Yoftahe Dimetros, a layman appointed as interim administrator of the church.

Antonios was officially removed from office in January 2006, when he was placed under formal house arrest. Four months ago, his patriarchal vestments and insignia were taken away from him by force.

Since he was placed under house arrest, Patriarch Antonios has been prevented from attending Orthodox worship services or receiving Holy Communion.

Previous related posts:

• Eritrean Christians flee to Sudan on foot
• Christian dies after four years in Eritrean prison
• Eritrea arrests Samaritan’s Purse aid workers

A survey of doctors in the UK reveals a startling groundswell of anti-abortion sentiment.  Almost one in five family doctors thinks abortion should be illegal.  Well over half favour reducing the present 24-week legal limit on abortion procedures.  Almost one quarter refuse to sign abortion referral forms.  Pregnant women must obtain forms signed by two doctors in order to procure a legal abortion.

The results from a survey of 309 doctors were published in the doctors’ journal Pulse.

Pro-abortion lobbyists are aghast.

Ann Furedi, the chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, a sexual healthcare charity specialising in abortion services, said: "Pulse's findings differ from weighted, representative UK public opinion poll results which have shown majority support for safe, legal abortion for several decades.

"The majority of the public are clearly supportive of doctors who provide abortion care, and are sensitive as to why a woman may need the choice of abortion.

"Extreme levels of disagreement with the availability of abortion has always been low amongst the general public, but dropped to about three per cent in a recent poll.

There is, of course, no necessary conflict between an opinion survey of the general public reporting one result and an opinion survey of doctors reporting a radically different result.

In fairness, however, documentation of the Pulse survey is sparse.  As far as I have been able to discover, the journal does not have a website, and only one of several news stories found via a Google news search said anything about the survey’s methodology.

Pulse contacted a random selection of GPs to ask them a range of questions on medical ethics, only three of which were on abortion, and 309 responded.

“Random” is good but, absent follow-up of non-respondents, it is questionable that the respondents adequately represent all British GPs.  Also, given that there are over 40,000 family doctors in the country, a sample of 309 is on the small side.  If the sample is random, however, it will nevertheless generate an unbiased estimate of the proportion of UK GPs who object to abortion.

Corroborating the survey’s finding is a warning issued two weeks ago by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists that increasing numbers of doctors are refusing to perform abortions. 

I am not aware of a comparable survey in Canada.  However, FWIW, I have heard anecdotal evidence from several sources that the number of young doctors (and nurses) refusing on medical ethical grounds to participate in abortion procedures is growing.

Previous related posts:

• Canada’s policy on abortion is not to have a policy
• Repeat abortions trivialise pregnancy
• British MP undeterred by death threats from pro-abortionists
• Impossible for Canada to be more extreme on abortion

The leftist French daily Libération has already called the winner in tomorrow’s presidential election, and it’s doesn’t look good for Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal.  The headline reads, “Pour Sarkozy, c'est déjà lundi” (“For Sarkozy, it’s already Monday”).

The final pre-election polls show Nicolas Sarkozy pulling farther ahead, with a 9-10 percentage point lead over Ms Royal. In perhaps the greatest disappointment of her campaign, Ségo has failed to garner the support of most women voters.  She was too liberal for conservative women and, paradoxically, too morally traditional for leftist feminists.

The air was filled with fiery rhetoric in the final days of the campaign.  Ségo warned of violent unrest if Sarko is elected, but that tactic now appears to have backfired.  The Times of London Paris correspondent Charles Bremner reports:

It will take an electoral tsunami for her to win now. She lost it yesterday, predicting virtual Armageddon if the supposedly dangerous conservative reformer reaches the Elysée Palace. I have been receiving spam-type e-mails — clearly orchestrated by the Royal campaign — from "ordinary citizens" begging people to wake up to the dire fate that awaits France if Sarko is elected. This includes a collapse of public services and mass poverty, they say.

Sarko’s response: Ségo’s tirade marks a new low in post-War French politics.

"I don't believe we have ever heard such violent and menacing suggestions in the history of the Fifth Republic.

"To explain that if you don't vote for a candidate there will be violence is quite simply to refuse the democratic and republican expression of opinion. We have never seen this before, never. This warlike language is a negation of basic rules of democracy."

It may be unprecedented in France, but leftist attempts to demonise political opponents on the right have become commonplace in North American politics.  What Canadian can forget the infamous (albeit ham-handed) Liberal attack ads from the January 2006 election?

Results should become available late tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon on UK news sites; that’s mid- to late-morning in North America.  French sources are prohibited by law from releasing any election news until 8pm local time.  Another futile attempt to stifle the free flow of information in the internet age.

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Ever since the Supreme Court overturned the then-existing abortion law in the 1988 Morgentaler decision, Canada has had no statutory restrictions on abortion.  Canada is unique among Western democracies (if not the entire world) in having no legal constraints whatever on the procedure, beyond those applicable to any surgical operation.  As has been said before, when it comes to abortion, it is impossible for Canada to adopt a more extreme position.

Polls have shown that a majority of Canadians favour some restrictions on performance of the procedure.  Nonetheless, our politicians have for many years refused even to raise the question, much less launch a national debate.  Likewise, Canadian mainstream media turn a blind eye to this issue of great importance to many citizens.  What’s wrong with this picture?

When several thousand anti-abortion demonstrators gather on Parliament Hill next week, as they do every year at this time, their protest is likely to be largely ignored, as it is every year, by most politicians and the media. The annual silent treatment could be explained away by the frequency of protest marches on Parliament, if the reaction was not such an apt reflection of the state of the abortion debate, such as it is, in Canada.
. . .
"Abortion is not on the agenda in Canada for the mainstream in Canada and has not been for a very long time," said Darrell Bricker, president and chief operating officer of public affairs for Ipsos-Reid. But he says this sense that the majority do not want to reopen the issue is often incorrectly taken to mean that there is consensus on the issue in Canada.

"Is there consensus? No, the opinions are all over the map. And you'd be wrong to see this as a consensus in favour of abortion under any circumstances."

The most recent polling on the issue, conducted by Environics for LifeSite, found that about one-third of Canadians support abortion on demand, one-third oppose abortion under virtually any circumstances, and one-third favour legalised abortion only during early stages of pregnancy.  Most of the latter group draw the line at three months’ gestation.

Clearly, there is political support for legislation that places some limitations on abortion, but politicians for some reason don’t want to talk about that.  Maybe they saw what happened to Elizabeth May when she expressed her personal opposition to abortion, even though she pointedly stated she doesn’t want an abortion law enacted.  Not one political leader spoke up in her defence, apparently cowed by the anti-free speech instincts of Canada’s “pro-choice” movement.  Political correctness rules.

The pathetical spectacle of political leaders afraid to lead reminds me of “The Bishop’s Gambit” episode of Yes, Prime Minister (the greatest TV series ever made, IMHO).  Prime Minister Jim Hacker and Cabinet Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby are discussing the appointment of a bishop in the Church of England.  An individual has been recommended for the appointment; PM Hacker thinks he looks fine, until Sir Humphrey reports rumours that he’s an “extremist”.

'He tends to raise issues that governments often would prefer not to be raised. He is a trenchant critic of abortion, contraception for the under-sixteens, sex education, pornography, Sunday trading, easy divorce and bad language on television.'

Quite a catalogue. This is serious. I don't want some loud-mouth, self-righteous cleric challenging the government on all these subjects.

It wouldn't be so bad if we had a policy about any of them. But they are all matters about which the government is trying to avoid having a policy. Our policy is not to have a policy.

I went over this with Humphrey. ‘Quite,' he replied. 'He is against your "no policy" policy.'

Quite, indeed.  Canadians are against our government’s no-policy policy on abortion.

Read the in-depth article in today’s National Post.

h/t: Big Blue Wave

Source of Yes Prime Minister quote: Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay, The Complete Yes Prime Minister (London: BBC Books, 1989), p. 232.

Previous related posts:

• Australian study finds link between abortion and domestic violence
• Judy Rebick pillories Elizabeth May over abortion
• British MP undeterred by death threats from pro-abortionists
• Abortion: Risk factor for “major depressive illness”
• Sex-selection abortions occurring in Canada
• Impossible for Canada to be more extreme on abortion

Yeah, folks mistake me for a Canadian all the time.

You mean some people think the characters in Fargo sound "out of the ordinary"?

So, where exactly does my accent come from?  Let’s see: I was born in Toronto but, when I was two, I told my parents I hated the place and we should move to the west coast.  Vancouver was a happenin’ place in 1952.  I remember it well.  When I was 10, we moved to Montreal where I somehow got through high school and, briefly but miraculously, into McGill.  I was living in downtown Montreal during the October crisis.  That was freaky.  Three months later, in January 1971, I dropped out of McGill and returned to Vancouver, where I stayed until 1988, when the StatWife and I moved to Yukon.  Except for 1977-1981, when I lived in Seattle, and 1986-1987, when we lived in Oxford.

h/t: Kruse Kronicle

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