NEWS

TORONTO - If people mistake the new larger-than-life crucifix at Edmonton’s St. Joseph College for something old it won’t bother Toronto artist Gregory Furmanczyk.

Furmanczyk is getting ready to ship his new sculpture to Edmonton for an official unveiling some time this fall. The crucifix, with a corpus of hardened plaster made to look like marble hanging on a wooden cross, was commissioned by Edmonton Archbishop Richard Smith for the new chapel at St. Joseph’s Seminary.

“It’s the age-old image of the story of redemption,” is how Furmanczyk describes his new work.

Smith and the seminary gave Furmanczyk leeway to produce a piece of liturgical art that would be unique.

“Firstly, I did it as my own expression,” he said. “You create something you want to create.”

While the artist makes no bones about paying homage to Michelangelo and 17th-century masters, he chose to emphasize the redemptive peace of Christ rather than suffering on the cross.

“I wanted to project a feeling of peacefulness and mysticism,” he said.

He likens his crucifix to Michelangelo’s famous Pieta.

Furmanczyk is best known as a portrait painter of official, public figures — from Heather Smith, the first female Supreme Court of Ontario Chief Justice, to Alvin Curling, the first black Speaker of the Ontario Legislature. But he has also built a career as a sculptor and painter of religious works. His Jubilee Cross was the centrepiece of Jubilee 2000 celebrations in the archdiocese of Toronto. He has painted a traditional icon of Christ the Pantocrator for Toronto’s Our Lady of Sorrows parish and has provided stations of the cross to St. Marguerite D’Youville in Brampton, Ont.

By the time Alexandria Lepore was finishing up her honours degree in Catholic studies and history from King’s University College in London, Ont., this spring, she knew she wanted to become a youth minister.

So when the opportunity came up to take a 12-day trip to do some youth programming, she jumped at the chance.

“It just sounded like the perfect opportunity to feel out what the job would be like,” Lepore said.

But this was no ordinary trip. Lepore and 13 other students, 11 from King’s College, two from St. Peter’s Seminary, along with Fr. Michael Bechard and Sr. Susan Glaab, headed out on June 28 to the Fond du Lac Denesuline First Nation reserve in northern Saskatchewan, close to the border with the Northwest Territories. It took three planes from the southwestern Ontario city to reach the reserve, located on Lake Athabasca, 1,275 km northwest of Prince Albert.

Bechard, director of campus ministry and chaplain at King’s, had visited the reserve the summer before with Glaab, and decided to organize this trip.

“I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity for some of our young people to work with some of the young people up there and be involved in some sort of exchange,” he said. “They saw a part of Canada that very few Canadians will ever see.”

The group spent the better part of a week on the reserve, getting to know the community and joining its members in prayer. Then, they accompanied the Fond du Lac people on a 40-minute boat ride to a little island called Pine Channel. It is there that Bishop Murray Chatlain of the diocese of Mackenzie-Fort Smith — and a graduate of London’s St. Peter’s Seminary — leads an annual pilgrimage for the Fond du Lac people along with two other nearby nations.

Chatlain, with assistance from Bechard, led the adults in liturgical and devotional experiences while the students from King’s focused their attention on the kids, leading activities and crafts, and providing different educational programs.

Lepore, a youth minister at King’s, has plenty of experience working with children. But this time, she said, was different — simpler, less structured.

One day, she said, she was trying to lead the children in an activity of making knotted twine rosaries, and instead saw some of them using the twine as a jump rope.

“It was a little hard to deal with the organized chaos,” Lepore laughed. “It was frustrating at first but in the end, that’s what we’re called to do — love unconditionally and just be present.”

Lepore said the children took to the King’s students immediately — a sentiment echoed by Jolene Smith, a masters of divinity student at St. Peter’s.

“They made it very easy (to bond),” Smith said of the children. “They came to us. They were very kind and welcoming.”

Both young women say some of the best moments of the pilgrimage were when everyone spent time in prayer together.

“They have a really deep faith,” Smith said.

And Lepore notes that a highlight for everyone was a confirmation ceremony for 125 young people.

As for Bechard, he couldn’t be prouder of his students.

“They did a really, really good job in terms of the program they did for the children,” he said. “Kids were there waiting for us when we got up in the morning and we had to send them home at night to go to bed.

“There was a real interaction and mutual respect.”

Keeping camp, of course, had its challenges — “I didn’t really enjoy my shower in the lake,” Lepore laughed — but Smith notes that they were more prepared than they thought they were, and they all found themselves missing the island upon returning home on July 10.

“At the end of the trip, we all still wanted to be together,” Smith said. “Four days later, we were having a reunion. The experience really bonded us and it’s something that we share with each other.

“It’s still with us. It’s something that I’m constantly thinking about,” she added.

For Lepore, the trip, which Bechard is hoping to turn into an annual journey, just might change her life’s plan.

“Just seeing the genuine love and the faith and the welcoming of the children, it reinforced that this is where I want to be,” she said. “I don’t know if there (are) any jobs available but… I’d really consider staying there (to work). I fell in love with the culture in northern Saskatchewan. I’d really like to go back.”

TORONTO - When Fr. Fernando Couto talks about St. Mary’s Catholic Church in downtown Toronto, it’s as if he’s talking about a beloved friend.

“The building is talking, if anyone is listening,” he said. “It needs our help.”

One of the oldest churches in Toronto, St. Mary’s is crumbling, said Couto, who has been pleading with the archdiocese since he arrived at the parish in 2008 for more money to complete its restoration.

“It has structural osteoporosis,” Couto said of his church at Bathurst and Adelaide. “We’ve been basically ignoring it.

“The damage every year is great.”

The current St. Mary’s is the third building of the historically Portuguese parish. Built in 1885 and completed four years later, it is older than Casa Loma, the Ontario Parliament buildings and City Hall, and is one of the oldest Catholic churches in Toronto.

But there hasn’t been much upkeep, Couto said, evidenced by the sinking foundation and crumbling walls, rotten wood and cracked slates.

“One day, bricks fell from the tower,” Couto said. “Rain (was) coming in through the windows.

“We (had) to address this sooner or later before (the) structure (became) too damaged or people got hurt.”

For his part, Couto would like to see St. Mary’s restored to its former glory.

“There’s lots of history here,” said Couto, who has been collecting old photographs of the building, both inside and out. He said he would like to put the outer pews back to their original position, facing into the middle of the church, as well as fix up many other nooks and corners.

But first, the basics, like the tower, the roof and the outer structure.

“It’s like a car,” Couto said. “I can live without a phone, a good radio, leather seats. (But) I need good brakes, an engine.”

The archdiocese of Toronto lent St. Mary’s $3 million, which helped to fix most of the tower, and the parish itself has raised an additional $1.2 million. But according to Couto, it’s not enough.

“It’s like trying to buy a car with (enough) money for a bicycle,” he said. “The work we’re doing is not curtains and flowers. This is serious structural work.”

Couto said the church will need a minimum of $6 million to be properly restored, which is why he is still appealing to the archdiocese as well as parishioners, who, he said, have been very generous and understanding despite many not having much to give.

“St. Mary’s (is) one of the nicest buildings in Ontario, in Toronto,” Couto said with obvious pride. “It’s time to pay back for the neglect on many years.”

Couto acknowledges that times — and demographics — have changed: this church that used to be filled with Portuguese Canadians is becoming more and more English as the cost of living downtown has increased and condominiums have “sprung up like mushrooms after the rain.”

But all the more reason, he said, to preserve St. Mary’s.

“We’re losing it,” he said. “And once we lose it, we can’t get it back.

“There’s the busy downtown (right there),” he said with a wave to Bathurst Street. “And you come in here, and here’s the peace.”

Every Jesuit chooses poverty. They all vow to live their lives poor, chaste and obedient. But Fr. Jim Webb kept choosing poverty – over and over.

The former provincial superior of the Jesuits in English-speaking Canada died 6:30 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 9 surrounded by his Jesuit brothers in Rene Goupil House, the Jesuit infirmary in Pickering, Ont. A long dormant cancer came back and metastasized, forcing him to resign as provincial superior and enter palliative care in May, 2012.

"One of the things that was most amazing about watching him the past few months was that, regardless of what was going on with his body, there was a radiance in his face. He was very much at peace," said Jesuit Fr. Philip Shano, the director of Rene Goupil House.

As provincial superior Webb moved out of the six-bedroom home in a leafy west-end Toronto neighbourhood which had once served as home base for the Jesuit leadership team. He and his socius moved into a small apartment in St. James Town – Canada's most densely populated neighbourhood and one of the poorest parts of Toronto.

Living his vow of poverty among poor people was important to Webb.

"If you say that material things are not important but then there's no sign of it, it lacks credibility," Webb told The Catholic Register in 2009. "Our commitment to social justice and solidarity with the poor is very strong. In terms of vocations, I think that is one of the things that is attracting younger people to the Jesuits."

But moving into St. James Town wasn't the first time Webb chose a more unambiguous sort of poverty. In over twenty years of service in Jamaica, the elegantly educated Canadian chose to spend every minute he could with the poor. Between 1986 and 2008 he was pastor of St. Peter Claver Church in Kingston, chair of the St. Mary's Rural Development Project, founding director of Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections and regional superior of the Jesuits in Jamaica. In 2009 he received the National Union of Co-operative Society Award for helping to found the St. Peter Claver Women's Housing Co-operative.

He always believed there was more that could be done, however difficult it might seem, said Shano.

"Where others saw missions impossible, Jim was eternally optimistic about how things could work out," he said.

As superior in English Canada, Webb responded generously to the request for a greater Jesuit presence in Vancouver. It was a decision that may yet stretch Jesuit resources thin elsewhere, but thin resources and trusting in God make up a good portion of what it means to be poor.

Webb chose to live among the poor and work for the poor as soon as he was ordained in 1973. He and Jesuit Fr. Michael Czerny moved into South Riverdale just east of the Don River, long before gentrifiers began installing wine cellars and stone countertops in what had once been crowded boarding houses. There he helped found the Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Justice, became a founding director of the Taskforce on Churches and Corporate Responsibility, helped get The Catholic New Times newspaper up and running, worked to bring the South Riverdale Community Health Centre into existence and founded the Canadian Alternative Investment Co-operative.

Of his 68 years, Webb spent 48 living the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. He was born in Halifax to J. Hilus Webb and Mary Somers July 29, 1944. He earned a B.Sc. from St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S. before entering the Guelph, Ont. novitiate in 1964. He made final vows in 1979 and along the way studied philosophy at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., taught high school at Brebeuf College in Toronto and studied theology at Regis College in Toronto.

In January of this year, as his own cancer spread, Webb was at Fr. Bill Addley's side when Addley died.

"He said that in those few minutes in the hospital as Bill died he realized that Bill was teaching him how to die," said Shano. "I noticed this Sunday, the (Feast of the) Transfiguration, you could look at Jim and see him being so, almost literally and physically, transparent because he was so thin. But his face still shining."

Webb was consistent his whole life long, said Fr. Michael Czerny – one of Webb's closest friends for 50 years.

"Jim understood that the Gospel drove us out into those worlds where, by being honest and helpful, we could encourage others to know God's love in their lives. This he did, his life long, and this he inspired many young Jesuits to do, too," said Czerney in an email to The Catholic Register

Canadians and Britons are more open to physician-assisted suicide than Americans, a recent poll by Angus Reid Public Opinion has found.

Eighty per cent of Canadians and 77 per cent of the English said that doctors should be allowed to assist terminally ill, fully informed and competent patients to kill themselves. But only 56 per cent of Americans agreed.

The poll found 10 per cent of Canadians and nine per cent of Britons firmly opposed to physician-assisted suicide no matter who asks for it. Nearly one third — 29 per cent — of Americans said it should never be allowed. On the flip side, three-quarters of Canadians and Britons said physician-assisted suicide should always be allowed under specific circumstances, whereas only half of Americans thought so.

The problem with polls is that few respondents understand what’s meant by physician-assisted suicide, said Rita Marker, Patient Rights Council executive director.

“Those who are answering this poll could be viewing it as removing life support,” she said in an interview from Steubenville, Ohio. The Patient Rights Council is independent, but closely aligned with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Murky notions of palliative care and its availability fuel a fear-based response to polls on physician-assisted suicide in Canada, said Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

“Most Canadians support euthanasia or assisted suicide because they fear dying in pain or experiencing uncontrolled symptoms,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Catholic Register. “Fear is a normal human response and it should be respected.”

The poll reveals nothing new about British attitudes to physician-assisted suicide, said Charles Wookey, assistant general secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.

“So far as the UK is concerned, in terms of opinion surveys this doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “What we’re seeing here to a degree is an instinctive, compassionate response from a society that prizes individual autonomy very highly.”

The Angus-Reid survey found 86 per cent of Canadians, 84 per cent of Britons and 69 per cent of Americans agree with the statement that “Legalizing doctor-assisted suicide would give people who are suffering an opportunity to ease their pain.”

People who believe laws against assisted suicide protect the vulnerable from social, economic and medical pressure to commit suicide face a major education challenge, said Wookey.

“It means there’s a very, very clear job for the Church to do, particularly in secular society,” he said.

But the Church can’t do it without allies, according to Wookey.

“What’s essential in this debate in this country is for it to be conducted in secular terms,” he said. “It’s an unfortunate fact that the religious argument or arguments based on the appeal to faith tend clearly not to persuade people who do not share the faith. They invite the response, ‘Don’t impose your faith-based views on the rest of us.’ ”

British bishops have teamed up with disability rights organizations and palliative care professionals to form an alliance called Care Not Killing — a purely secular platform to engage the public policy debate.

“When people are taken through the arguments and begin to understand first of all the quality of palliative care and what palliative care can provide, and secondly what the public policy consequences are for the most vulnerable members of society of a change in the law — what it might actually lead to — then very many people do actually change their minds,” said Wookey.

Getting people educated about the issue is essential because without a full debate economic issues will enter the equation, said Marker.

“We have to recognize the fact that all health programs are trying to save money,” she said. “By trying to save money the question is, will those health programs — if you say assisted suicide is a medical treatment — will they then do the right thing or the cheap thing?”

In Canada, availability and understanding of palliative care is key, said Schadenberg. He points to a 2010 Environics poll  that found 71 per cent of Canadians want governments to prioritize palliative care over euthanasia and assisted suicide. The 2011 Parliamentary Committee on Palliative and Compassionate Care report Not To Be Forgotten is a start, he said.

“The real answer is to care for the needs of Canadians who are living with terminal conditions, chronic pain or disabilities,” said Schadenberg.

Angus-Reid’s online survey polled 1,003 Americans, 2,019 Britons and 1,003 Canadians between July 4 and 5. The margin of statistical error is plus or minus 2.2 per cent for Great Britain and plus or minus 3.1 per cent for Canada and the United States.

The Toronto Catholic District School Board is the first Ontario board to ratify a deal signed by the province and Catholic teachers aimed at ensuring labour peace this school year.

At an emergency meeting Aug. 7, the TCDSB agreed to the tentative deal signed by the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association and the province earlier this summer. The agreement includes a two-year wage freeze for teachers, changes to the sick leave gratuity and a cut in sick days. The province has been pressuring teacher unions to sign the agreement as part of its austerity measures in dealing with a $15-billion budget deficit.

"I'm proud of the leadership our board has taken," said Ann Andrachuk, TCDSB chair. "By working with the Ministry of Education and our labour partners, we will be able to both balance our budget and continue to provide an enriched Catholic education in Toronto schools."

Vice-chair Sal Piccininni said the agreement allows the board to "maintain the healthy fiscal outlook we have worked so hard to achieve." He added, "The only responsible thing to do was to act in the best interest of the board, students, parents and the community by signing the OECTA agreement."

Education Minister Laurel Broten praised the Toronto board for its decision.

"I know the TCDSB trustees have the best interests of students at heart," said Broten in a statement. "That's why I commend them for leading the way and doing what's best to put our education system on a sustainable financial footing while protecting the gains we've made in education together. I look forward to other boards across Ontario doing what is right for the students, parents and communities they serve."

While the Toronto deal raises hope for labour peace when the school year begins in September, a number of Catholic boards have said they are intent on making their own deal with the teachers. The London and Windsor-Essex Catholic boards have rejected the agreement and filed for conciliation as they try to hammer out a deal with the teachers. (A Ministry of Labour conciliator will determine if there is enough common ground for a settlement. If not, then teachers could go on strike or could be locked out by the board.) The boards argue the government deal strips them of important hiring and managerial rights.

There are reports that another 10 school boards have or will file for conciliation.

Premier Dalton McGuinty is pressuring other school boards and unions to use the OECTA deal as a template for negotiations. He has said if agreements aren't reached, his government is prepared to use legislation to avoid any disruption to the school year.

For the second time in a year the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board (WECDSB) is under financial investigation.

“A financial investigator has now been appointed to our board,” acknowledged Barb Holland, board of trustees’ chair. “I don’t know where this is going to end up. I know we have said that we will co-operate fully with the people that are being sent in to do the investigation and we have been.”

Grahame Rivers, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, said a poor financial track record is what caused the investigation.

"Windsor Catholic has a long history of developing overly optimistic annual budgets. They've failed to balance five out of the past six years," said Rivers. "Given the serious ongoing financial issues at the Windsor board, the Minister has brought in an investigator to look at the Windsor board's finances."

It could end with the ministry appointing a supervisor to overtake control of the board from the trustees and thus removing Holland from the picture.  

Last year WECDSB invited an auditor from the ministry as a response to the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association concerns regarding wages.

"OECTA was pointing out or suggesting that there were (financial) difficulties because the people at the top of our organization were overpaid,” said Holland. “We asked the ministry to come in, look at our books and they did so. It showed that what we’d been saying all along was correct, that we are under budget on all the items that we said we were.”

Despite filing a balanced budget for 2011-2012, which had a small surplus, said Holland, the board did overspend in certain areas — specifically on occasional teachers. This happened due to a higher number of teacher absences than were predicted when drawing up the budget in 2011. It's an issue Holland believes shouldn't constitute an audit because the board is already addressing it with an attendance management program.

Declining enrollment has been blamed for the WECDSB's financial struggles as ministry funding is provided on a per student basis.

Costs associated with maintaining under-utilized space also influenced the board's decision to close and consolidate several schools this June. Savings are estimated at $11 million.

But Holland said she thinks this second audit isn't about financial instability as much as it relates to the board filing for conciliation to resolve collective bargaining difficulties it is having with its teachers.

“I do feel that it is a retaliatory measure and it is retaliation because we spoke out on this issue,” said Holland. “If this goes to our board being put under supervision, what happens to our community of Windsor-Essex is that the ratepayers lose their voice.”

Upset by some key terms of the recent contract negotiated between the teachers’ union and the provincial government, two Ontario Catholic school boards have filed for conciliation and are intent on making their own deal with the teachers.

The London Catholic District School Board and the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board believe the government deal strips the boards of important hiring and managerial rights. They want to make their case before a conciliator from the Ministry of Labour as the next step to reaching a new collective bargaining agreement.

London board chair Philip Squire, a lawyer, says the deal reached between the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association and the Ontario government is not legally binding unless school boards agree to the terms individually or it is legislated by the province.

“We want to go to conciliation with OECTA and we want to work out an agreement with them which will be an agreement negotiated between us and OECTA, the two parties that should be negotiating,” Squire said. “OECTA went to the weakest link, which was the government — desperate to save money — and they made an agreement with them which transferred pretty significant rights to the teachers’ union.”

That agreement included a two-year wage freeze, changes to the sick leave gratuity and a cut in sick days. But the London and Windsor-Essex boards are upset that the deal stripped them of rights pertaining to hiring practices and the administration of diagnostic testing.

“This is the piece that people are missing, that the vital checks and balances that are part of our success are being removed,” said Barb Holland, chair of the Windsor-Essex board. “I find it interesting that these are non-monetary issues so I don’t understand why we cannot simply just address them and find a common ground on that.”

The boards are requesting the intervention of a conciliator from the Ministry of Labour. If an impasse remains after 17 days, the door could be opened for a legal strike by teachers or a lockout of teachers by the board.

Squire said agreements signed under the government’s guidelines would make seniority the overriding qualification when hiring a permanent teacher from the occasional teachers’ list.

“Let’s say we need a teacher to hire in a secondary school for a particular subject. We wouldn’t have the right any more to go hire the teacher best suited for that job, we would just have to hire the teacher who is most senior on the list,” said Squire. “That’s something that we cannot agree to for students in our schools. It’s not the best thing for students.”

Likewise, giving teachers control over diagnostic testing is wrong, said Squire. He said these tests evaluate individual students and the classroom as a whole and are a reflection of the overall effectiveness of the teaching. Squire fears teachers may now simply refuse to administer the tests.

“Now if we want to go into a classroom to do that testing there is a veto there for teachers to say, ‘No we don’t want to do that, we are doing just fine, I’m a good teacher and my kids are doing just fine,’ ” he said. “Parents want to know that there is some responsibility on teachers to make sure kids are learning.

“The teachers should have to show to the principals and superintendent that they’re doing a good job.”

But this type of compare-and-contrast evaluation isn’t the purpose of diagnostic testing, said Kevin O’Dwyer, OECTA’s provincial executive.

“Diagnostic testing isn’t about evaluating a teacher,” he said, adding that he’d have to talk further with Squire about it. “I hope it is not being used to evaluate teachers.”

Squires’ fears regarding teachers vetoing the tests are unfounded, said O’Dwyer, who said encouraging a student’s success — not hiding poor grades — is in a teacher’s best interest.

“We didn’t get fifth in the world by teachers doing what Mr. Squire is alleging they’re doing,” O’Dwyer said of the ranking given the Ontario school system by PISA, the Program for International Student Assessment.

As for the hiring practice, O’Dwyer said the boards still retain considerable control. When a position opens, the new agreement requires boards to use seniority as the basis to identify five qualified occasional teachers. From that select group, the board can then assess a teacher’s specific skills and other qualifications before it fills a position.

“Mr. Squire is incorrect when he says it’s based on seniority only. That’s false. It’s also based upon qualifications as it always has been,” said O’Dwyer.

MaterCare International has created a “Charter of Maternal Rights” it hopes will be adopted by leaders and decision makers around the world to help stem the high number of maternal deaths.

According to MaterCare’s Dr. Robert Walley, mothers in most of the world are treated with neglect, and changing this has “hardly been a high priority with anybody.” Walley is the executive director of the St. John’s, Nfld.-based MaterCare International, an international group of Catholic obstetricians and gynecologists that treat mothers and babies around the world that’s hoping to do something about this.

The preamble to the charter makes the case that “Mothers and their babies are among the poorest of the poor and are the most vulnerable physically.”

“They’re marginalized,” Walley told The Catholic Register. “There’s about 330,000 mothers (that) die every year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa” from complications during pregnancy, labour and delivery, and the six weeks following.

The charter, which pulls its substance from statistics as well as Catholic documents including the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Second Vatican Council, focuses on the human rights of mothers, maternal health care and necessary steps that must be taken by obstetricians and midwives. It says, “The causes of maternal deaths are well known, are readily preventable and can be successfully treated at comparable low cost. Proper measures, availability of skilled personnel at the time of birth and prompt emergency obstetrical care if things go wrong may save the lives of 90 per cent of the mothers.”

But Walley said too many world leaders are focused on population control as opposed to making giving birth safer and healthier worldwide, and he is not hopeful that world leaders will hear MaterCare’s message.

That said, he does point positively to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s statements at the 2010 G8 Summit in Huntsville, Ont. There, Harper announced Canada would pledge $1.1 billion towards a new global effort to improve maternal and child health in developing countries (dubbed the Muskoka Initiative).

In January 2011, the United Nations created the Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health, co-chaired by Harper and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete.

PHOENIX - The executive director of the Arizona Catholic Conference praised U.S. District Court Judge James Teilborg for upholding Arizona's recently enacted ban on abortions after 20 weeks except in cases of medical emergency.

Ron Johnson said he was "absolutely thrilled with the decision from the federal court." Johnson, who worked with Arizona legislators to help get the measure passed, said that "it's been frustrating at times" when courts overturn hard-won legislation.

"It's extremely rewarding when we get the legislation passed and the court upholds (it)," Johnson said, calling the new law "sensible and very positive legislation."

In his July 30 ruling, Teilborg wrote that the Arizona Legislature had written the law — known as H.B. 2036 — based on "the substantial and well-documented evidence that an unborn child has the capacity to feel pain during an abortion by at least 20 weeks gestational age."

Supporters of the law said that it also protects women from increased risks incurred in late-term abortions.

Three doctors who provide abortions, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the New-York based Centre for Reproductive Freedom, had asked the court for a temporary restraining order or an injunction to prevent the law from going into effect Aug. 2. Teilborg's ruling denied both and declared Arizona's law constitutional.

The decision sent shock waves through the abortion industry, and opponents of the law said they would immediately appeal the ruling, calling the restrictions "extreme."

Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma have similar laws restricting late-term abortions based on the scientific finding that fetuses experience pain.

Pro-life organizations throughout the country praised the ruling. Dorinda Bordlee and Nikolas Nikas, attorneys with the Bioethics Defense Fund, advised Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, who was named as a lead defendant in the emergency injunction action filed by the abortion providers, the ACLU and the New York centre.

"This ruling should be studied by everyone in the pro-life movement," Bordlee said, "because it foreshadows the day that the Supreme Court will return the abortion issue back to the state legislatures to act on their legitimate interests in protecting women and unborn children from the unspeakable violence of abortion."

Steve Aden, senior counsel for the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom, agreed.

"Every innocent life deserves to be protected. That certainly includes the most vulnerable of all: children in the womb who experience horrific pain when being torn apart in the womb during a late-term abortion like those this law prohibits," Aden said. "The ACLU and the Centre for Reproductive Rights, who filed this lawsuit, apparently don't care about any of that, preferring to pursue their own agenda. The court was right to thwart their attempts to stop this law."

Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life in the United States, similarly welcomed the court's decision and called for an end to "dismemberment abortions" known as "dilation and extraction."

"The abortion debate should not be so abstract that we forget we're talking about pulling the arms and legs off of babies," Pavone said. "To those asking for our vote in November, I ask, do you or do you not think dismemberment should be legal? Every voter should ask the same."