Pundits and politicians agree: Ontario’s newly minted Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown is in a quagmire.

His problem goes something like this: social conservatives got him elected as leader but pro-life, anti-sex-ed voters aren’t nearly enough to bring the new guy victory in a general election. Sooner or later, they say, Brown must abandon his base.

OTTAWA - As the federal government prepares to begin consultations in order to draft euthanasia and assisted suicide legislation, the archbishop of Ottawa issued a pastoral letter that called on people to support a culture of life.

OTTAWA - With legalized euthanasia looming large over the House of Commons, a Tory backbencher has tabled a motion to affirm the right of free votes on matters of conscience.

Raissa Maritain the philosopher and spiritual writer died some months after suffering a stroke. During those months she lay in a hospital bed, unable to speak. After her death, her husband, the renowned philosopher Jacques Maritain, in preparing her journals for publication, wrote these words:

After seven months of refusing to meet face-to-face with the affected doctors, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario will now face them in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

VATICAN CITY - Legalizing euthanasia risks undermining people's access to loving, holistic care as they face the natural end of their life, many experts at a Vatican conference said.

OTTAWA - Margaret Somerville has called on Parliamentarians to "have a backbone" in dealing with euthanasia in Canada.

Hang on for dear life.

Unfortunately, the dearness of life seems to be dying a not-so-slow death.

OTTAWA - Campaign Life Coalition has announced “Let Life Win” as the theme of the 2015 National March for Life to be held May 14 in Ottawa.

OTTAWA - The federal Conservatives intend to undertake extensive consultations and still meet the one-year deadline set by the Supreme Court of Canada when it struck down the laws against assisted suicide in the Carter decision Feb. 6.

EDMONTON - Jo-Anne Paquette’s three-month journey with Martha Shephard as she died from a brain tumour was both physically draining and a spiritual gift for Paquette.

A number of voices have called on the federal government to trump the Supreme Court’s assisted-suicide decision with the notwithstanding clause — the controversial section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which allows Parliament to pass laws contravening some rights and liberties for up to five years before legislators have to re-vote on the matter or craft new legislation.

OTTAWA - McGill University ethicist Margaret Somerville has called for a Royal Commission on “physician-assisted death” as well as for the federal government to invoke the notwithstanding clause to trump the Supreme Court's recent ruling on the matter.

In the 33-year life of the Charter of Rights and Freedom the federal government has never invoked the notwithstanding clause to override a court ruling. But Canada has never faced a decision quite like the Feb. 6 edict by the Supreme Court that will usher in assisted suicide and euthanasia.

OTTAWA - With one year to come up with a solution after the Supreme Court struck down Canada’s laws against physician-assisted suicide, there are any number of options being bandied about on all spectrums of the political divide.