National Post

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How Christianity saved Justin Bieber from being aborted: Pop star’s mom stirs debate with new pro-life film
Pattie Mallette’s position on abortion is clear: Had she not converted to Christianity before getting pregnant as a teen, her pop star phenom son Justin Bieber would have never been born.

But now, with a memoir under her belt and her son’s next album dropping soon, the Stratford, Ont., born mother is carving out a niche as an anti-abortion crusader, amid reports Bieber may not be comfortable with it.

The 37-year-old is the new, public face of a short-film fundraising project to raise at least $10-million for American pregnancy centres, which encourage women to go through with a pregnancy, not terminate it. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP/ File)

Graphic: Abortion in Canada — almost 100,000 documented terminations in 2009
The National Post breaks down the most recent complete numbers from the Canadian Institute for Health Information on abortion in Canada, gathered from provincial and territorial ministries of health, hospitals and independent abortion clinics (it doesn’t include fee-for-service abortion data because it’s of varying quality). While data from hospitals and clinics alone underestimates the number of abortions performed in Canada annually, for now it’s the best way to produce comparable Canadian data. Above is a look at the 93,755 induced abortions reported in 2009 (the most recent year for which data were available).

Women don’t get pregnant from ‘legitimate rape,’ Republican Senate nominee says
Todd Akin, the Republican nominee for Senate in Missouri, caused a public outcry Sunday over his claim that victims of “legitimate rape” rarely get pregnant because the female body can prevent unwanted pregnancies. The Republican, who is running against Sen. Claire McCaskill was made the unusual claim to defend his opposition to abortion rights for rape victims.

“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.

UPDATE: Republican Congressman says he ‘misspoke’ when he said women rarely get pregnant from ‘legitimate rape’

Follow the Leaders: Day 27 on the trail
It’s the day before advance polls open for the long weekend and party leaders know they’ve got to make an impression on the ground. Again, you’ll find them concentrated in the east, with Stephen Harper making a foray into the Maritimes and Michael Ignatieff kicking around Montreal. Can they capture voter attention before heading into Easter Weekend?

NDP surge to the lead in Quebec: poll
Jack Layton’s New Democratic Party has surged past Gilles Duceppe’s faltering Bloc Quebecois and is now in first place in Quebec, according to an Ekos public opinion poll released exclusively to iPolitics. The poll, conducted earlier this week, found the New Democrats have jumped 10 percentage points since the eve of the leaders debate to 31.1% while the Bloc has dropped like a rock by 7.4 percentage points to 23.7%

Ignatieff says Liberals ‘clear’ choice for Quebecers
 Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said Thursday that Quebecers are “experimenting” about how to replace the Conservative government, but he argued that his party would be the clear choice at the end of the day. “The electoral situation in Quebec is volatile, but a couple of things are clear,” said Ignatieff after a morning round table with representatives of Quebec’s artistic community in Montreal.

Harper vows not to reopen abortion debate as prime minister
Stephen Harper has vowed that a Conservative government will never endorse anti-abortion legislation while he is in power, but he refused to disclose his personal view on abortion. The Conservatives continued to distance themselves Thursday from remarks by Saskatchewan incumbent MP Brad Trost, who said the Tories have decided to “defund” the International Planned Parenthood Federation, an organization that provides abortions around the world.