Category Archives: Liberal

It was an extraordinary moment in 2018 when Chief Justice John Roberts issued a stinging public rebuke of the president. I cannot recall anything like it happening before.The chief justice has tremendous respect for each of the branches of the federal government and the officials who lead them. He is what political scientists call an institutionalist someone who believes that the preservation of the institutions of our society is vital and that critics of their performance should be careful not to undermine their role in American life.

On top of that, Roberts is an amiable man who favors compromise and consensus because he respects the views of others. And yet when President Donald Trump cavalierly dismissed a judicial decision against his administration because it had come from an Obama judge, Roberts responded immediately and forcefully: We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.

I was reminded of the chief justices claim during the firestorm of criticism triggered by the recent leak of a draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that favors overruling Roe v. Wade. Pundits, commentators and politicians critical of Alitos conclusion and the support it had garnered among four of his colleagues have accused those justices of pursuing a partisan agenda. To these critics, the justices are partisans in robes, mere political hacks.

Which reminds me of H.L. Menckens puckish observation that for every complicated matter there is a simple solution that is wrong. The simple answer critics give when they dislike a decision of the Supreme Court is that the justices are doing the bidding of the party that supported their appointment. That simple answer is profoundly wrong and does great damage to our constitutional order.

Careful study of the work of our federal judiciary shows that although judges are not perfect, most of the time most of them live up to the oath each takes to be impartial.

A word about that oath: I teach a seminar at Harvard Law School on the role of a judge under the Constitution. Our readings cover in detail the debate over whether a judge should view the Constitution as a living document that should be interpreted to reflect the changing sensibilities of the American people or as a charter that protects rights that can only be added to or taken away by We, the People amending the Constitution through our elected representatives, and not by judges.

Our study of this debate takes up much of the course, but before we jump into that debate, we spend several days studying the oath of office required of every federal judge. That oath was created in the initial act of the First Congress and requires each judge to pledge to the American people and to God that he or she will be impartial and will not decide cases to favor partisan ends.

Never once in my 15 years as a judge on the U. S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit did I see a colleague cast a vote that I thought was tainted with partisanship. The disagreements were always over what the law requires and not our preferred political outcomes. Cynics may dismiss my report as nave, delusional or even deceptive, but they would be wrong. I was in the room where it happened. Im not nave. Im not delusional. Im not a liar. Ive never been a Supreme Court justice, so maybe things work differently there? The chief justice claims they dont. And Justice Stephen Breyer, a political progressive appointed by a Democratic president, agrees with the chief.

I know the chief justice. I know Justice Breyer. Neither is nave. Neither is delusional. Neither is dishonest.

Of course, a citizen cant rely on the pundits descriptions of judicial decisions to understand what is at work. As Justice Amy Coney Barrett pointed out recently, the best way to determine whether a judge is a partisan, as the critics claim, or keeping her oath of impartiality, as the chief justice and Breyer assert, is to read her written opinions. Thats hard work. For example, the draft opinion by Justice Alito that was leaked to the public last week is 98 pages long. Im a slow reader. Thats three hours of work for me. And yet how can I conclude the opinion is in error or is correct, is driven by a partisan agenda or a faithful effort to follow the law, unless I roll up my sleeves and do the hard work of studying it for myself?

I was a member of the Presidents Commission on the Supreme Court, which was given the task of describing the current debate over the role of the Supreme Court in American society. Most observers viewed the creation of the commission as an effort by President Joe Biden to create a forum for the debate over whether the number of justices on the Supreme Court should be increased. For a year, the members of the commission studied the issue intensely. We read books and articles. We took testimony from experts and comments from any with enough interest in the topic to write. I joined the commission convinced that increasing the number of justices on the Supreme Court would be a dangerous gambit. Nothing I read or heard in the year that followed changed my view. Heres why.

Those pressing for expansion believed judges were partisans in robes. They didnt believe the claim of the chief justice, Justice Breyer or me that judges decide cases based on the law and not politics. They were dissatisfied with some of the decisions of the current Supreme Court, and they assumed that they could change those decisions by adding justices who had partisan political ends in mind.

Im not pleased with all of the decisions of the Roberts court either. I was overturned by the court in a landmark case that eviscerated a key component of the most significant voting rights legislation in our nations history. I think the court gave short shrift to the power given to Congress after the Civil War to root out racism in the way we conduct elections. But I dont attribute the courts approach to an effort to hurt Democrats and help Republicans because I know the justices and I know they take seriously their oath to be impartial. They had a different view than do I about the reach of the 15th Amendment. Such differences over the meaning of the law, not competing partisan allegiances, explain our disagreement.

I was honored that Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson asked me to introduce her to the Senate Judiciary Committee at the start of her historic confirmation hearings. I was well-acquainted with her work as a judge on the federal district court in Washington, D.C., because I sat on the court that heard appeals from her rulings. Pundits and reporters commented on the novelty of a political conservative appointed by a Republican president endorsing a political progressive nominated by a Democratic president. Im happy if my full-throated support of Jacksons appointment was a strike against hyperpartisanship, but pushing back against political tribalism wasnt my main purpose.

Speaking up for an impartial judiciary was.

As a judicial conservative who believes that a judge plays a limited role under theConstitution, I may end up disagreeing with Jackson on any number of matters, and yet I do not believe for a moment that her decisions will be driven by an interest to advance the policies of political progressives. They will be driven by what she believes the law requires.

The American people have good reason to have confidence in our judicial system. Those who attack our federal judges as partisans for the pursuit of their own political gain do great damage to the Constitution. Jonathan Haidt warns of a catastrophic failure of our democracy. The reason? We just dont know what a democracy looks like when you drain all trust out of the system.

In the years following the collapse of the Soviet empire, I had the good fortune of traveling throughout Eastern Europe and meeting with courageous reformers who risked their lives to establish the rule of law in their countries. They were eager to learn from the American experience, especially about how to create and maintain an impartial judiciary, which they believed was the crown jewel of American democracy.

As Benjamin Franklin observed at the conclusion of the Philadelphia convention that drafted our Constitution, the rule of law is a fragile possibility that is difficult to keep in the best of times. We are not living in the best of times. All the more reason to stop the partisan attacks on a judiciary that has served our Constitution imperfectly but well.

Thomas B. Griffith is a former federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and a fellow of the Wheatley Institution at Brigham Young University.

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Abortion leak: Is the Supreme Court conservative or liberal? | Opinion - Deseret News

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban attends a press conference after signing an agreement with Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa on cross-border regional cooperation. (Photo by Luka Dakskobler/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The war in Ukraine continues to draw our attention away from one of the biggest global news stories of our time: illegal migration.

Europe is on the front lines of this mass migration into the West, but the changes will be so enormous that they will affect the United States as well. The old continent is facing catastrophic change of the sort that might open the door to leaders who will make Viktor Orbn, Hungarys right-wing prime minister, seem liberal in comparison. Jnos Batsnyi, a Hungarian poet famous in his own homeland, once wrote: Cast your watchful eyes on Paris! When it comes to Europe, American readers do well to pay attention not only to the news from Ukraine but to the borderlands of Europe as well.

Of course, migration and immigration have always been present to some extent in the Western world and always will be. The question is not whether there will be immigration, but where migrants come from, whether they are young men only, and what cultural beliefs they will bring with them.

Even mere discussion of the social changes brought about by migration triggers the liberal media in both the U.S. and Europe. They see its mention as potential incitement to hatred, leading to horrific events such as the 2019 Christchurch massacre. Though all decent observers should be careful not to incite hatred, we would be fools to ignore the facts, which exist independently of how we feel about them.

The inconvenient facts of Europes migration crisis are these: First, the population of the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region will see drastic growth in the coming decades. Second, the MENA region is set to lose much of its drinking water and food sources. Third, advances in electric vehicles and renewable energy sources could soon rob the region of much of its GDP. All of this will prompt millions of people from this region to leave for Europe.

The confluence of these factors will dramatically affect Europes cultural and political milieu, and will do so in a way that legitimizes hardline European politicians of the right. Put another way, if you dont like Viktor Orbns style of right-wing politics, wait till you see who comes after him.

Before we have a look at the influences behind the mass relocation of people today, lets try and imagine how such a huge wave of migration would take place. Although the last such event in Europe happened in 2015, for Southern Europe it started a little earlier, in 2014. By that time, one million Syrians had left their war-torn country and more than 600,000 had applied for asylum in the E.U. The Syrian civil war began in 2011, so realistically, three to four years after a more serious cataclysm, a migration crisis could develop in Europe. The immediate reaction of some highly conservative, nationalist countries, such as Hungary, was to close the borders in 2015. However, countries with liberal or moderate conservative leadership immediately responded according to a doctrinal inclusive attitude and invited the masses to Europe. We can remember the slogan of the then conservative German Chancellor Angela Merkel: Wir schaffen das, meaning we will solve it! It seems unlikely that the elite controlled by Brussels would react differently in the event of another crisis.

Contrary to Merkels slogan, the E.U. has not even solved the integration of one million people. Today we can safely say that Merkels immigration policy has been a complete failure. While in 2022 only 12.6 percent of foreigners in Germany were unemployed (thats more than a million people), 65 percent of Syrians were unable to make a living in Germany and were therefore weighing down the social system. Crime statistics do not show any better data either. In 2019, non-German citizens committed 35 percent of crimes in Germany. It is worth highlighting again the role of the Syrians: In the same year, Syrians were responsible for 12.2 percent of violent crimes. And although refugees make up only 1 to 2 percent of the German population, in 2018, for example, 12 percent of all sexual crimes were committed by refugees.

Negative social changes like this do not go unnoticed by the European masses. Immigration is fundamentally viewed negatively by people around the world, and especially in Europe. In countries where the negative effects of migration can be openly discussed, such as Hungary, Poland, or the Czech Republic, a significant proportion of the population rejects migration. A recent survey looked at the question of whether, according to the population of different E.U. member states, 70 million migrants could be successfully integrated into Europe in the coming years. The responses were staggering: It was not only Eastern European countries who found this scenario completely unrealistic, but even the more liberal German, French, Dutch, Swedish, and Flemish societies. Yet the number of 70 million is still a relatively low estimate. Incidentally, according to Eurobarometer, in 2018-2019, the European population was concerned about migration above all else.

It is not difficult to imagine that European elections in the future will be more and more about the topic of migration. The migration crisis of 2015 shook the continent, eliminating parties in the long run (think of the German CDU) and elevating parties (think of the further strengthening of Fidesz in Hungary after 2015). We have not even talked about the rise of terrorism. As is well known, several perpetrators of the attack on the Bataclan and other cafs in Paris on November 13, 2015, entered Europe during the wave of migration with false documents. The true identity of some perpetrators is still unknown.

Although many people do not remember this because of the Covid-19 pandemic, in March 2020 another migration crisis unfolded on the Turkish-Greek border. The Turkish side accused the Greek border guards of using live ammunition, which Greece denied. But let us be honest, by 2050, they will certainly be using live ammunition. And mass migration will not only be a burden upon Southern Europe. Last November, the Polish border guards fought off masses of Arab migrants on the Polish-Belarusian border with rubber bullets, tear gas, and water cannons. Muslim masses last attempted to occupy these areas in the 17th century.

Europes borders are slowly becoming a zone besieged by illegal immigrants from all directions. How long will European politicians be able to hold back the far right? By far right, I do not mean people who want to defend their homeland and their borders, but people who want to shoot with live ammunition people who look different, and whose coming to power can only bring suffering to all the people of Europe, both Christians and Muslims. They will not be the far right of the Budapest kind, but of the Christchurch kind.

***

What are the main factors causing mass migration? The most obvious one is overpopulation. Drastic population growth in the countries of the MENA region is no new phenomenon. According to U.N. data, which was analyzed in English by historian Tams Dezs, director of the Budapest-based Migration Research Institute, the regions population grew from 193 million in 1955 to 879 million in 2018. In 2018, Europes population was 746 million; the increase was therefore almost equal to Europes total population in just over 60 years. Iran, for example, had a population of 19 million in 1955, yet it has a population of 84 million today, and in 2011, 61 percent of its population was under the age of 34.

What can we expect in the future? According to conservative U.N. projections, the regions population could grow to one billion between 2020 and 2050, an increase of 400 million over the next 30 years. Let us not forget that with this calculation we have not even mentioned all the other countries in the world that do not belong to the MENA region, such as Sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania, South America and Central and East Asia.

One of the most dramatic effects of climate change will undoubtedly be a shortage of drinking water. According to the U.N. definition, when a territory withdraws 25 per cent or more of its renewable freshwater resources it is said to be water-stressed. According to a March 2022 study by Statista, the water stress level will be highest in the region we are discussing by 2040 (above 80 percent). But we may not have to wait that long. According to recent research by Pew, the worldsdry areas are getting drier much more quickly than previously thought. For example, in Iran, per capita water availability is set to fall by 50 percent by 2050.

Why is the issue of water so important? The New Security Beat blog, maintained by the Wilson Center, explains: Decreased water availability can be the principal cause of civil unrest and localized violence. Water stress can be exploited by non-state actors, violent extremist organizations, insurgents, and other belligerents. There will be more and widespread occasions of civil unrest and localized violence, with a greater sense of urgency to change perceived governmental inadequacies. The increase in war and terrorism will inevitably increase the willingness to migrate, as we saw in 2015 for Syria.

Those who pay attention not only to the daily news of the Russo-Ukrainian war, but also to the broader studies, may not be surprised to hear this: the war has already shaken the worlds food supply, and we are still at the beginning of the process. All this will be cumulatively true for the MENA region. According to Niels Graham and Inbar Peer of the GeoEconomics Center: Together, Russia and Ukraine account for nearly a third of global wheat exports. However, following Russias attack on its neighbor, both vital supply chains have been crippled. The war will impact global grain markets now acutely in the MENA region, with possibly devastating economic and political ripple effects.

What does this mean in practice? For example, Iran is one of the largest consumers of grain in the world. The country was already struggling with grain shortages due to the drought in 2021, so a huge number of imports were expected for the 2021/2022 marketing year. The country is projected to need 5 million tons of grain this year, making it the fifth largest grain importer in the world, just behind Egypt. However, the huge demand will certainly remain unmet. Ukraine and Russia account for more than a quarter of global wheat exports and nearly a fifth of corn. One of the main buyers of wheat will therefore remain bereft of sources.

According to Tams Dezs, the phenomenon of the spread of electric cars cannot be ignored either when considering the future of the MENA region. While we cant fully predict changes in oil production, both Bloomberg and J. P. Morgans predictions suggest that electric cars could account for half or more of the global car fleet by 2050. It is therefore logical to conclude that the crude oil-producing countries in the region in question, whose GDP largely relies on hydrocarbon production, will face declining market demand. This could lead to a massive loss of income and unemployment. In 2018, for example, according to the World Bank, oil rents accounted for 20 percent of Irans GDP, 43 percent in Libya, 39 percent in Iraq, and 21 percent in Syria.

According to a 2018 Gallup survey, 24 percent of the population in the MENA region wanted to emigrate in 2017. The numbers have only grown since then. According to an article in December 2021, the tendency to emigrate in Iran is 33 percent, but this was typical of the entire Arab world: two out of five young Arabs want to leave their homeland, and in some countries such as Lebanon, Libya, Yemen, and Iraq even two-thirds of young men.

In what direction will these masses leave the MENA region? They cannot go to Southern Africa precisely because of climate change, destabilization, and war. In the Sub-Saharan region, according to a Gallup survey just quoted, 33 percent of the locals were inclined to emigrate, and that was five years ago. Russia, India, and China will not let these masses in, as these countries are not very famous for their liberal immigration policies anyway, and India and China are overpopulated even today. It makes sense that these masses will head for Europe, if only because the liberal elite in Brussels has not learned from the 2015 crisis and continues to make inviting, inclusive statements, which are regularly covered by the Arabic-language media. From this, the masses draw the simple conclusion: come here, there will be peace, water, food, and work, here we welcome you!

***

So let us summarize all that has come before. The population of the Muslim world, which is already suffering from a lack of resources, is projected to grow, according to organizations that cannot be accused of spreading far-right propaganda, by a population equal to that of the E.U. by 2050. Meanwhile, there are negative social phenomena, cataclysms and upheavals hovering above this region, even one of which would be able to move the masses. Yet we have just listed at least five factorsin overpopulation, climate change, water scarcity, violence, unemployment, food shortageseven one of which could trigger a new, more powerful wave of migration than ever before, and all of which have already begun.

Why are the liberal Brusselites interested in fostering mass migration to Europe? How can they not see the social unrest and dangerous developments their actions ferment? The answer is most likely that they can see it, but they do not care. The European liberal elite has decided that the merits of turning the Old Continent into Terra Nova, the New Land for the New Europeans outweighs the downsides. Most of all they want to stay in power, a feat that is becoming increasingly difficult for left-wing and liberal parties in Western Europe, at least without the Muslim vote.

As the European right turns its attention more and more to the woes of the classical working class, so does the left concentrate more and more on the social situation and rights of the migrant masses. And the migrant masses do know how to say thank you. In the United Kingdom, 85 percent of Muslims voted on the Labour Party at the 2017 parliamentary elections, and the same trend could be detected between 2005 and 2015 as well. The British Vote Smart movement, supported by Muslim news portals and the Muslim Council of Britain, has focused on calculating the maximum number of council mandates attainable based on the Muslim population and encouraging strategic voting. Among British Muslim councilors, left-wingers were strongly overrepresented during the last two local elections. The European left is becoming more Muslim while the Muslims of Europe are becoming more left-wing.

Surveys in two other Western European countries with a large immigrant community show similar results. In the 2004 Belgian regional elections, 45.7 percent of the Muslims eligible for voting supported the Socialists, 13.3 percent the Liberals, and only 7.1 percent the Christian Democrats. During the 2007 parliamentary elections, 42.3 percent of Muslims voted for the Socialists, 16.7 percent for Christian Democrats, 14.7 percent for Liberals, and 12.2 percent for the Greens.

In France, during the 2007 French presidential elections, in the rst round, 64 percent of Muslim voters voted for socialist candidate Sgolne Royal, 19 percent for center-right candidate Franois Bayrou, and 1 percent for right-wing candidate Nicolas Sarkozy. In the second round, 95 percent of Muslim voters supported Royals camp. Just a few days before writing, a similar result occurred. Some 69 percent of the French Muslim population voted for Jean-Luc Mlenchon in the first round of the 2022 French presidential election. Behind him, second was Liberal Emmanuel Macron with 14 percent, and third with Marine Le Pen on the right with 7 percent of the Muslim vote. Mlenchon performed best in Muslim-populated neighborhoods, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Muslim leaders in France called for supporting Macron before the second round.

The growing Muslim population in Europe will, of course, demand a voice in politics over time, as we can already see in the case of the British Labor Party or the immigrant party DENK in the Netherlands and in the case of the United States (think of Ilhan Omar). The script described by Michel Houellebecq in his book Submission does not seem so detached from reality: One day, Western or Northern European countries may be led at least in part, if not entirely, by individuals with an immigrant background. In todays globalized world, America cannot escape the same troubles.

T.S. Eliot rightly pointed out that the main problem with liberalism is that it contributes to the dismantling of the very liberties that had helped bring it about in the first place. Brussels is making the same mistake today: It is persecuting the Hungarian right and its migration policy by referring to it as far right, and not seeing the reality that if Europe does not catch up with Hungarys position soon by 2050 the continent will face a real far right. The day will come when we will think of Viktor Orbn as a moderate, liberal politician, and perhaps even in Brussels they will feel nostalgic for the good old days when all they had to do was write angry communiqus against Hungary.

Lszl Bernt Veszprmy is a Hungarian historian and the editor-in-chief of Corvink, the popular science journal of Mathias Corvinus Collegium.

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Will Orban Be Remembered as a Liberal? - The American Conservative

In the 1990s and early 2000s, it looked like I was ahead, but after Sept. 11, people started arguing he was right, he said. But I dont think its conclusive that Im going to lose.

Liberal democracy, he believes, isnt just an accidental, culturally contingent byproduct of a particular historical moment, as some of his critics have argued. I do believe theres an arc of history, and it bends toward some form of justice, he said.

In his new book, released on Tuesday by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Fukuyama argues that liberalism is threatened not by a rival ideology, but by absolutized versions of its own principles. On the right, the promoters of neoliberal economics have turned the ideal of individual autonomy and the free market into a religion, warping the economy and leading to dangerous systemic instability. And on the left, he argues, progressives have abandoned individual autonomy and free speech in favor of claims of group rights that threaten national cohesion.

The answer to these discontents, he writes, isnt to abandon liberalism, but to moderate it.

Fukuyama said that Eric Chinski, his editor at Farrar, Straus, pushed him to engage with the most thoughtful critics of race-blind liberal individualism, like the Black philosopher Charles W. Mills, rather than the latest media-driven outrage stoked by anti-critical race theory activists.

He may disagree with them, but many critical race theorists in the academy, Fukuyama said, are making serious arguments in response to liberalisms historical, and continuing, failure to fully extend equal rights to all.

Hes more scathing about the postliberal intellectuals of the American right, with their admiration for Hungarys Viktor Orban, like the legal scholar Adrian Vermeule (whom he describes as having flirted with the idea of overtly authoritarian government) and the political scientist Patrick Deneen.

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Francis Fukuyama Predicted the End of History. Its Back (Again). - The New York Times

The Liberal leader said he would make sure everyone has access to a family doctor or nurse practitioner within 24 hours regardless of where they live, something he characterized as a basic standard that wasn't being met

A Liberal government in Ontario would attempt to bolster the population in the province's north by improving access to medical care, building roads and taking more control of immigration to the region, party leader Steven Del Duca said Tuesday.

Del Duca who is looking to improve his party's third-place position in next month's vote said he would attempt to draw skilled workers to northern Ontario in a bid to boost the region's economy and improve quality of life.

Having more of a say in immigration would help match newcomers' skills to the labour needs of the area, he said.

"We will work with the federal government, seeking a mandate from the people of this province, to make sure that Ontario is in the driver's seat when it comes to our own immigration system," he said in North Bay, Ont.

"Making sure that as the world comes to this country, more and more skilled workers can come to this province of ours, can come specifically to northern Ontario to fill that skilled worker shortage that we have."

If elected in June, the Liberals would appoint a dedicated immigration minister to help newcomers work in their areas of expertise. They would also strike a northern immigration advisory panel of regional municipal leaders and economic development officers to ensure a new immigration system is "in the best interests of the North."

Del Duca made the comments at a campaign stop ahead of a debate between party leaders on northern issues.

The Liberal leader said he would make sure everyone has access to a family doctor or nurse practitioner within 24 hours regardless of where they live, something he characterized as a basic standard that wasn't being met.

"That's not good enough for northern Ontario, and that's not good enough for an Ontario Liberal government," he said. "We need to do better."

He said he would attract more doctors and nurses to the region by covering the tuition of medical and nursing students who "commit to working in a rural or remote community."

Del Duca also pledged to build more roads to the resource-rich Ring of Fire to make it more accessible a project he said would draw even more workers to the region.

"I think about, for example, the heavy machine operators that we are going to need to build the road that's going to unlock the potential of the Ring of Fire at long last," he said.

"We need to make sure that northern Ontario has those and other skilled workers to provide the kind of economy and the kind of quality of life where we can move forward together."

The Liberals also promise to get "affordable, high-speed internet" to everyone in northern Ontario by 2025.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 10, 2022.

Nicole Thompson, The Canadian Press

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Better med care, more say over immigration among Liberal promises to northern Ontario - Sudbury.com

Demonstrators who support abortion rights celebrate outside the Constitutional Court in Bogota, Colombia on February 21. After an 8-hour debate, the court decriminalized abortions during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. Chepa Beltran/Long Visual Press/Universal Imag hide caption

Demonstrators who support abortion rights celebrate outside the Constitutional Court in Bogota, Colombia on February 21. After an 8-hour debate, the court decriminalized abortions during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy.

BOGOTA, Colombia As some U.S. states place more restrictions on abortion and Americans brace for the possibility that the Supreme Court will soon overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing the procedure, several Latin American countries have moved in the opposite direction.

The latest nation to do so was Colombia. On Feb. 21, Colombia's Constitutional Court legalized abortion during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy.

"Colombia now is the country with the most progressive abortion laws in Latin America and the Caribbean," says Mariana Ardila, managing attorney in Colombia for the rights group Women's Link Worldwide. In the Americas, she added, only Canada has more liberal abortion regulations than Colombia.

Colombia used to be a socially conservative country with an influential Catholic church. Women were not even granted the right to vote until 1954. Until 2006 there was a total ban on abortion. But that didn't stop women from interrupting their pregnancies in often dangerous ways.

"In the 1970s, abortion was the first cause of maternal mortality," says Dr. Laura Gil, a Colombian gynecologist and abortion rights activist.

"Most of the abortions were carried out with traumatic procedures. It could be people that had no training at all and would try with knitting needles," she says. "Many women would try to get abortions by injuring themselves, by falling down the stairs or by drinking poison. I can remember women with their internal organs totally destroyed and handcuffed to their beds and being interrogated by the police."

But a number of things have changed over the years.

As Colombia became a more urban and educated society, church influence waned. Colombia's long-running guerrilla war was also a factor. Partly to convince left-wing guerrillas to disarm and take part in legal politics, Colombian lawmakers in 1991 agreed to write a new, more progressive constitution.

The search for peace "was a very important factor in all of this," says Arlene Tickner, an international relations professor at Rosario University in Bogot.

Although the war continued, the 1991 constitution strengthened individual rights and laid the groundwork for landmark court decisions legalizing euthanasia in 1997 and same-sex marriage in 2016 and expanding abortion rights.

In 2006, the Constitutional Court, which was established under the new constitution, decriminalized abortion in cases of rape, fetal malformation and when the woman's health is in danger. As the procedure became more common, and as deaths from illegal abortions diminished, polls showed more and more Colombians supporting some form of abortion rights.

Then came Latin America's so-called marea verde or "green wave" of demonstrations.

A pro-choice activist (in green) argues with a woman opposed to the legalization of abortion outside the Argentine Congress in Buenos Aires on June 13, 2018 the year that Argentina legalized abortion. Eitan Abramovich/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

They started in Argentina in 2018 when activists wearing green scarves the color of the pro-choice movement in Latin America took to the streets of Buenos Aires and other cities to pressure lawmakers into legalizing abortion. In 2020, Argentina's Congress voted to legalize abortion in the first 14 weeks of gestation. Last year, Mexico's Supreme Court ruled that criminal penalties for abortion are unconstitutional.

These developments fed the push to broaden access to abortion in Colombia, says Ardila of Women's Link Worldwide, which was one of several Colombian groups that last year petitioned the Constitutional Court to address the abortion issue.

"The victories of one country inspire other countries," she says. "We share strategies. We talk to each other. We learn from each other."

One recommendation ahead of the February court decision, she said, was to use familiar faces to destigmatize abortion. The result was a widely circulated video in which Colombian TV and film stars point out that women from all walks of life seek abortions, whether or not it's a crime and sometimes with tragic results.

Prior to the court decision, most Colombian women seeking to prematurely end their pregnancies took the drug Misoprostol, often prescribed for stomach ailments, which was a relatively safe way to induce abortions even though doing so remained illegal, says Dr. Gil, the gynecologist. But others, some of whom didn't know about Misoprostol, resorted to riskier, clandestine medical procedures.

In January, Lorena Gelis, a 37-year-old woman in the northern Colombian city of Barranquilla died from severe bleeding after a botched, unauthorized abortion, her former partner, Sergio Ordosgoitia, told NPR.

"I spoke with her on the phone the day she died, and she sounded in really bad shape," Ordosgoitia, who was traveling in Europe at the time and is now looking after their two teenagers on his own. "The news of her death was cruel and devastating."

Advocates predict such tragedies will become mostly a thing of the past following the Constitutional Court's February ruling. But its narrow 5-4 decision legalizing abortion has provoked a backlash, with anti-abortion groups holding marches in the streets of Bogot, the Colombian capital.

Critics, like Ivan Duque, Colombia's conservative president, are outraged that the court's decision allows abortion for up to 6 months of pregnancy. (They set the cutoff point at 24 weeks because after that premature babies have a better chance of surviving outside the womb.)

"Five people cannot tell an entire nation something so atrocious that a life can be cut off at 6 months," Duque told reporters after the ruling.

Anti-abortion demonstrators protest outside the Constitutional Court in Bogota, Colombia, on February 21 after the court decriminalized abortion during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. Cristian Bayona/Long Visual Press/Universal Images Group via Getty Images hide caption

Elsewhere in Latin America, many people and government officials feel the same way. Although abortion is available on demand in Cuba, Guyana and Uruguay, the procedure remains illegal under most circumstances across much of the region. Abortion is totally banned in El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, even in cases of rape or incest.

Still, Dr. Gil says that the recent legal breakthroughs in Argentina, Mexico and Colombia could help the Green Wave spread to other countries in the region. The latest to take up the issue is Chile. There, a special assembly is writing a new constitution that is expected to include abortion rights.

"This will ultimately lead to a wider legislation, like the (court ruling) that we got," she says of the court ruling in Colombia. "It's an example for the rest of the region.

Supporters of the legalization of abortion clash with riot police during International Safe Abortion Day in Mexico City on September 28, 2020. Last year, Mexico's Supreme Court ruled that criminal penalties for abortion are unconstitutional. Victoria Razo /AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Supporters of the legalization of abortion clash with riot police during International Safe Abortion Day in Mexico City on September 28, 2020. Last year, Mexico's Supreme Court ruled that criminal penalties for abortion are unconstitutional.

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Abortion laws in Colombia are now among the most liberal in the Americas : Goats and Soda - NPR

A former Australian of the Year and mental health advocate says Liberal MP Fiona Martin's campaign has selectively quoted him in a reelection endorsement for her without his knowledge.

Patrick McGorry, the executive director of Orygen and professor of youth mental health at the University of Melbourne, has asked the Member for Reid to take down a digital ad in which he was featured.

Professor McGorry told the ABC he was "very concerned" by the ads, targeted at young adults under 35 years old, published across Facebook and Instagram.

"I've called her to say I'm extremely concerned ... that my image and supportive comments have been used in the election campaign," he said.

"This was done without my knowledge and the authorisation and I've asked her to remove that from her election material."

Dr Martin told the ABC she had agreed to this request.

Professor McGorry said he sent Dr Martin an email in March, before the election was called to thankher for chairing a parliamentary inquiry into mental health which was tabled at the end of last year.

Dr Martin's ad, which also spruiked her involvement in mental health services, used only the first and last sentence of the 214-word email he sent her.

"Dear Fiona, I wanted to thank you for your committed and effective advocacy for investment and reform in mental health care," the ad read over an image of Professor McGorry.

"You have been a tireless leader and advocate for mental health not only nationally but also in your own Community. I hope your efforts are successful."

The below is the full email Patrick McGorry sent Fiona Martin on March 22, which he has given the ABC permission to publish. The bolded sections are words which were used in DrMartin's ads.

Dear Fiona

I wanted to thank you for your committed and effective advocacy for investment and reform in mental health care. The parliamentary inquiry you chaired on mental health, in collaboration with Emma McBride from the ALP, was a key bipartisan process which has moved things forward in several important ways. Your professional background as a psychologist proved invaluable and is a unique asset for the field within the current parliament. As you know, I led the advocacy alongside Angus Cleland of Mental Health Victoria which led to the creation and funding of the adult mental health hub model. Now branded as Head to Health Centres these are being scaled up nationally, again with bipartisan support as has occurred with headspace. I am delighted that you have been advocating strongly to have one of these key platforms of care in your own electorate. These hubs are essential backup systems of care for GPs and psychologists for the missing middle those Australians with more complex and sustained mental health conditions for which primary care is simply insufficient on its own. In this and many other ways you have been a tireless leader and advocate for mental health not only nationally but also in your own community. I hope your efforts are successful. Kind regards Pat McGorry

Professor McGorry said the quotes were selectively taken from his email, that he did not consent to it being published, and the ad could compromise his advocacy work.

"I've been absolutely strict over many years about a bipartisan approach to mental health ... so I'm very surprised to hear that information," Professor McGorry said.

"It seems to be implied in that statement that I'm basically advocating people vote for her, and I certainly never would have said that."

Dr Martin, in a statement to the ABC, said she had spoke to Professor McGorry and would remove the advertising.

"I have enormous respect for Professor Patrick McGorry," she said.

"We have been able to work closely together to achieve important outcomes in mental health and suicide prevention. Earlier this year, I asked Pat for words of endorsement that he had kindly provided, and unfortunately there was a misunderstanding about how those words would be used.

"We have spoken today, and I offered to rectify this misunderstanding by removing the advertising, which he has accepted."

The electorate is crucial for the Liberal Party in this election, and Dr Martin, who holds the Western Sydney seat by a 3.2 per cent margin, is trying to withstand a challenge from Labor candidate Sally Sitou.

It is the second time in less than a day Dr Martin has come under the spotlight while on the campaign trail.

Her Labor opponent Ms Sitou, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, has accused Dr Martin of confusing her for another Asian-Australian during a heated debate on 2GB.

The Coalition has faced a barrage of criticism for featuring prominent charity figures and community leaders on endorsement materials without their knowledge or permission.

News Corp on Wednesday reported that Ryan MP Julian Simmonds had distributed what purported to be a personal endorsement from a priest without authorisation.

The Guardian reported that The Pyjama Foundation and Access Arts both demanded Brisbane MP Trevor Evans stop distributing material that appeared to offer him their endorsements.

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Posted6h ago6 hours agoWed 11 May 2022 at 9:06am, updated1h ago1 hours agoWed 11 May 2022 at 1:47pm

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Former Australian of the Year says Liberal MP Fiona Martin selectively quoted him in political endorsement without his knowledge - ABC News

For too long, college students have been forced to make a false choice between a life-shaping liberal arts education or a pre-professional education that gives them valuable career skills.

The reality is that schools need to provide students with both. This requires moving from an either/or approach to a both/and mindset. Denison Edge is one of the ways were making that happen.

Located in the middle of downtown Columbus, about 30 minutes from Denison Universitys main campus in Granville, Ohio, Denison Edge provides stackable skills and certifications that cater to the needs of todays job market. The offerings cover practical areas ranging from sales and marketing, to finance and analytics, to supply chain and logistics.

As an extension of Denisons Knowlton Center for Career Exploration, Denison Edge serves current liberal arts college students, recent graduates, and professionals. The goal is to provide the skill sets, direction, and networking opportunities to help them succeed in their career journeys.

For example, an undergraduate whos been majoring in economics might enroll in an Excel certificate program to improve their odds of landing the desired internship. In one case, a young alumna working in real estate completed a marketing credential to support her business aspirations.

Since its launch in January 2021, nearly 350 students have taken advantage of Denison Edge programs. Currently, about 70% of participants are college students, and 30% are working professionals. Approximately 15 instructorsa mix of Denison faculty and local business expertsprovide in-person instruction to intimate classes of 10-20 students.

While online and virtual skills programs have their place, the in-person approach offers several advantages. Theres a cohort effect, a small classroom effect, and a mentoring effect that comes into play. Perhaps because of these intangibles, there are also much better odds for course completion than many online programs.

Despite what the name might suggest, Denison Edge isnt just for Denison students. Kenyon College, Otterbein University Marietta College, and Ohio Wesleyan University are just a few of the institutions whose students have taken advantage of our courses. We want to be a home base for anyone in the region who wants to pick up some last mile skills.

There are several signature course areas that Denison Edge uses as delivery mechanisms for skills and certifications. The first one is credentials. Like a typical college course, credentials are a deep dive into a topic requiring 30 hours of in-person learning over a 10-week period. For those who need a quicker path to top off their skillset, Denison Edge offers accelerators, which require 4-12 hours of content time over the span of 2-6 weeks.

And this summer were launching a summer immersion program that will enable a small group of 20 students to work full-time directly with a company here in Columbus for 6 weeks helping them solve a real-world business problem. Thats a terrific way to make valuable use of the full calendar year, given that students are only in classes for 60% of the year.

Were serious about making these skills, certifications and experiences stackable, too. We work with a digital badging company that provides unique identifiers to anyone completing our programs; students then place these badges on their LinkedIn profile or resume. Companies can verify the program that the students or the professionals participated in, what the content of that program was, and how grades or marks were assessed.

Crucially, we can keep a finger on the pulse of the business community in Columbus to ensure that the programming were offering is relevant and that students are gaining the skills that companies are looking for. Columbus is humming these days, so its important to make sure the talent pipeline is firing on all the right cylinders.

If were going to serve our students in helping them successfully launch, and if were going to serve the larger world in providing talent that can drive economies forward, we must get out of this either/or bind that requires students to choose between a liberal arts education and technical pre-professional skills.

They need both. And with Denison Edge, we feel like were tearing down the old paradigm and building a model for where education needs to go.

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College Students Shouldnt Have To Choose Between Career Skills And Liberal Arts - Chief Executive

Last year, on the final day that the House of Commons sat before rising for the summer, the Trudeau government tabled a bill that would have allowed the Canadian Human Rights Commission to investigate complaints of alleged hate speech on the internet.

The Liberals knew full well that they would be calling an election less than two months later, and that their last-minute bill would die on the order paper. But tabling it gave them an opening to boast at the start of the pre-electoral summer of 2021 that their government had taken action to protect Canadians against hate speech and hate crimes online, even though they had taken no such action. And still have not. And, as we will explain in a moment, probably should not.

The Liberals have not reintroduced the bill to date, as they implied they would in their election platform. Nor have they kept a campaign promise that, if re-elected, their government would introduce separate legislation within its first 100 days to combat serious forms of harmful online content.

This is not to say they wont do these things, eventually. But the fact that 100 days have come and gone without the promised legislation is evidence the Trudeau Liberals have discovered a simple truth: that sloganeering about online harms is easy and attracts votes, while actually following through is hard, and may attract (and deserve) criticism.

Any attempt by Ottawa to regulate who says what on the internet is a minefield, because doing so necessarily impinges on the most fundamental democratic freedom freedom of speech.

The Trudeau governments plan to go after digital hate speech under the Canadian Human Rights Act, and giving the power to investigate and regulate it to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, is fraught with problems.

A previous Liberal government tried it in 2001, when it specifically amended the act to make it a discriminatory practice to subject anyone online to hatred or contempt based on a prohibited ground of discrimination, such as religion, race or sexual orientation. The clause was repealed in a Conservative private members bill in 2013 because of fears it was having a chilling effect on free speech.

Those fears were well founded. In one famous case, the Canadian Human Rights Commission investigated a complaint about a 2006 Macleans magazine article titled The Future Belongs to Islam.

The commission ultimately dismissed the claim that the article exposed Muslims to hatred or contempt, on the grounds that ruling otherwise would be an unreasonable impairment of free expression. But that didnt prevent Macleans and the articles author from having to go through a long, expensive and difficult CHRC process.

Subsequent reports commissioned by the CHRC suggested fixes, such as allowing the commission to quickly dismiss unfounded complaints, and to assign costs for abuses. Better yet was the recommendation to leave the prosecution of hate crimes to the criminal justice system Crown prosecutors, judges and real courts. That is what ultimately happened, and that is what the Liberals now want to change.

The 2021 Liberal bill aimed to once again make alleged hate speech something the CHRC could investigate, under the rubric of discrimination law, while also modestly shortening the CRTCs leash compared with the 2001 legislation. Notably, it put a high bar on hate speech, categorizing it as something that is likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group a definition in line with Supreme Court rulings. It also added that a communication doesnt constitute hate speech solely because it expresses mere dislike or disdain or it discredits, humiliates, hurts or offends.

But classifying hate speech as a legally discriminatory act, to be dealt with by a human-rights apparatus rather than a court, remains as problematic a move as ever. Freedom of expression is not absolute in Canada no right is but the bar for overriding it has always been extremely high, and must remain so. Whats more, the bar for hate speech ought to remain in the criminal realm, where it is an offence that is only applicable to the most rare and extreme cases. Allowing it to be turned into a human-rights complaint was a mistake then, and its a mistake now.

The Trudeau governments plan to introduce sweeping legislation to limit online harms, and to force social-media companies and search engines to take down flagged content, is equally fraught. We will look at that later this week.

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Globe editorial: The Liberals are eager to talk about regulating speech online but wisely reluctant to actually do it - The Globe and Mail

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The long-gun registry returns starting next week.

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Oh, Im sure Trudeau Liberals will claim they are not reviving the convoluted, expensive, controversial, useless registry. After all, they swore up and down before the 2015 election they would never reinstate the registry if elected.

If you call any Liberal MPs office and ask about Registry 2.0, I am confident youll get some talking-points answer along the lines, Were just asking anyone selling a gun in Canada to keep a record of who they sold it to. That information might be useful if the gun is ever used to commit a crime. And isnt that what we all want, a safer Canada?

Except thats not exactly what the Liberals are doing.

Consider whats going to happen starting next week if you own a gun and want to sell it to a relative or friend, or if youre a generous uncle who wants to give an old firearm to a niece to start her in hunting.

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These are the hoops you will have to jump through.

You will have to call up the RCMPs Registrar of Firearms, provide him with your possession and acquisition licence (PAL) number.

Youll have to collect your nieces PAL number, too, and give that to the Mounties, which presupposes both of you have gone through all the paperwork, safety courses, mental health and criminal background checks to get PALs in the first place.

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While youre at it, the registrar will also need both your addresses and phone numbers, and some personal identification number like a drivers licence, social insurance number or passport.

And, of course, the Mounties will need the make, model and type of firearm youre giving away, plus the serial number.

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Then, and only then, will the RCMPs registrar issue you a reference number that both you and your niece can enter on your PALs, after which youre free to give your niece the gun.

(Hope you didnt want it to be a surprise.)

Every detail above will be entered into the Mounties firearms computer. Maybe Im just being paranoid, but that certainly sounds like a registry to me.

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What makes it sound even more like a registry is that fact that if you give the gun to your niece or she accepts it from you before every t is crossed, you could both be heavily fined or even go to jail.

Gun stores must also record all the personal details of everyone they sell a gun to, including their PALs, plus all the details of the guns. And they must keep the records for a minimum of 20 years.

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Moreover, police or provincial firearms officers may demand retailers produce any or all records in their files at any time, and they dont need a warrant to do it. That also means they dont need a specific reason like suspicion of a crime to search a gun shops records.

Of course, crime guns in Canada dont come from gun shops here, for the most part. And they certainly dont come from uncle-niece gifts. The vast majority of guns used in crime in Canada upwards of 90 per cent are smuggled in from the States.

So while the Liberals are bringing in their new backdoor registry next week, theyre surely also clamping down on gun smuggling and violent gun crime, right?

No.

Indeed, because gun smuggling, armed robbery, drug trafficking and illegal possession of firearms are all crimes in which Indigenous and black Canadians are disproportionately involved, the Liberals are shortening sentences for violent gun crime as an important step in addressing systemic racism.

Hunters, farmers and generous uncles are all subject to the new registry, but real gun criminals are not.

How successful do you think the new registry is going to be at making Canada safer?

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From our newsroom to your inbox at noon, the latest headlines, stories, opinion and photos from the Toronto Sun.

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GUNTER: The Liberals have sneakily brought back the gun registry - Toronto Sun

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RENFREW Over the weekend, Liberals across Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke nominated Oliver Jacob, McNab/Braeside councillor, as their Ontario Liberal candidate for the June 2 election.

Over the last two years, Canadians have learned just how much we can accomplish when we work together to support everyone in our community, particularly the most vulnerable, said Jacob. In this campaign, I am proud to represent Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke as your Ontario Liberal candidate as we work together to invest in high-quality education, invest in supportive health care and revitalized long-term care, and bring much needed support to our small businesses and communities right across Renfrew County.

Born and raised in Renfrew County, Jacob is a community leader, youth advocate and volunteer who has worked in communities across Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke. Since 2018, Jacob has served as one of the youngest municipal councillors in the history of the Township of McNab/Braeside.

According to a Liberal press release Jacob, as a municipal politician, has championed community engagement, community safety and wellbeing, and is supporting programs that increase affordable housing options through the Greater Arnprior Community Council on Poverty and Homelessness.

He also brings proven leadership experience through various volunteer roles including as a board member of Arnprior Regional Health, United Way East Ontario Renfrew County, and as the former co-chairman of the Renfrew County Youth Network, the release states.

After completing a bachelor of arts with double major in history and politics at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Jacob returned to Renfrew County to start his career working with both the Town of Arnprior and the Labour Market Group of Renfrew and Lanark.

These professional experiences have proven the need for a strong, progressive government that listens to the unique needs of rural workers, businesses and community groups and to provide real leadership on key local issues like housing, education, health care, food security, infrastructure renewal, broadband internet, cellular service and much more, the release concludes.

Link:

Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke Liberals announce Oliver Jacob as their 2022 provincial candidate - Pembroke Observer