Death threat forces Morgentaler to leave 20th-anniversary celebration early

Some disturbing and sad -- though not altogether surprising -- news has come out of Saturday's symposium on the 20th anniversary of the 1988 Morgentaler decision that decriminalized abortion across Canada.

Dr Henry Morgentaler, the man behind the '88 case, and Dr Garson Romalis, who was shot by a sniper in his home in 1994, were both forced to depart early from the University of Toronto-hosted conference after a death threat was phoned in. Here's a link to The Star's report.

This incident serves as a reminder to those who believe the debate over abortion rights has ended.

To read NRM's recent, in-depth Q&A with Dr Morgentaler (including his comments on his experience with punk rock and his ping-pong wizardry), click here.

After reading The Star's news report, I did a quick search online. Nobody else has bothered to mention the death threat.

*Update, Tuesday, January 29:
A couple of people have mentioned the death threat online now, besides The Star. There was a discussion last night on the Free Dominion ("the voice of principled conservatism") internet forum about the veracity of the threat. Below an ad for an assault weapons discussion website, one user commented, "Its a theatrical play to denegrade the opposition...staged by all the usual suspects in the malthusian death cult that is the foundation of trudeaupian political culture." Said another: "It's a cooked up tale by the pro-abort crowd to feed the tale of the frothing anti-abortion extremists seeking to take away women's rights, yadda, yadda ... Of course, the media dutifully report it all as fact." One user joked about one of the forum's members making the death threat -- "Somebody check Hailey's long distance phone bill" -- and another still yearned for the courage to make a similar death threat: "I could actually dream up such things but never have the nerve to pull it off."

Check out our website: www.nationalreviewofmedicine.com