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 We encourage you to reproduce and distribute our brochure, fliers, etc. To receive e-mail alerts about actions you can take to promote the consistent life ethic, email CL Action Alerts. Get clothing, buttons, bumper stickers, magnets, mugs and cards promoting a consistent life ethic at the CL Online Store |  January 22, 2010 Consistent Life had a presence at the 2010 March for Life in Washington, DC. Five Board members and a number of other supporters participated  Consistent Life banner held by Board members Carol Crossed & Tony Masalonis Two other groups joined our contingent - member group Prolife Alliance of Gays and Lesbians (PLAGAL) and Secular ProLife.  Consistent Life banner held by Board members Bill Samuel & Carol Crossed with PLAGAL & Secular ProLife joining us Other groups which came to the March from various places also carried banners with consistent life ethic messages.  Franciscans support consistent ethic of life  Camden parish notes it's a seamless garment community Walk for Life West Coast Too!(added later) Consistent Life member Edward Chow made this sign and carried it at the Walk for Life West Coast in San Francisco the day after the March for Life in Washington.  Sign at 2010 Walk for Life West Coast June 15, 2009
John D. Roth, a leading Mennonite historian, recently endorsed the Mission Statement of Consistent Life. Roth is Professor of History at Goshen College. He has a PhD in Early Modern European History from the University of Chicago. Roth serves as Editor of The Mennonite Quarterly Review. He is also President of the Mennonite Historical Society and Director of the Mennonite Historical Library. Roth has authored or edited a number of books, most related to Mennonite history and life. One of these books is Choosing Against War: A Christian View (Good Books, 2002). He is also a prolific writer of articles in a great variety of magazines and periodicals. June 1, 2009 Consistent Life, an international network of 200 groups and many individuals for peace, justice and life, condemns the assassination of Dr. George R. Tiller. Responding to violence with violence only furthers the cycle of violence, which harms all human society. We urge opposition to all forms of violence through creative nonviolent means. Killing people does not demonstrate that killing people is wrong. Executions, whether by governments or private parties, represent moral failures. We hope that people reflecting on the tragedy in Wichita on May 31 will re-examine and reject the idea that violence is an acceptable "solution" to problems, perceived or real. May 1, 2009
David P. Gushee recently endorsed the Mission Statement of Consistent Life. Dr. Gushee is the Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University. He is currently working on a book on The Sanctity of Life: A Christian Exploration (Eerdmans, 2010). Dr. Gushee teaches at McAfee and throughout Mercer University in his specialty, Christian ethics. Beyond his work at Mercer, he is the president of Evangelicals for Human Rights, a columnist for Associated Baptist Press, and a contributing editor for Christianity Today. Dr. Gushee also currently serves as co-chair of the Biblical/Contextual Ethics Group of the American Academy of Religion and on the Christian Ethics Commission of the Baptist World Alliance. He has published nine books, over 75 scholarly essays, book chapters, articles, and reviews, and hundreds of magazine articles and opinion pieces. His books include the award-winning Kingdom Ethics, as well as Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust and Only Human. Dr. Gushee was the principal drafter of both the Evangelical Climate Initiative (2006) and the Evangelical Declaration Against Torture (2007). He is the Kingdom Ethics columnist for Prism, the magazine of Evangelicals for Social Action, a Consistent Life member group. January 20, 2009
Tragedy to Trauma December 11, 2008 The Obama-Biden Transition Team has been asking for input from individuals and groups. Consistent Life responded with a short paper sent to the Team presenting a number of policy suggestions. We asked that the Obama-Biden Administration consider this question when reviewing options for policies in all areas: Would this policy enhance the dignity, affirm the worth and increase the well-being of humans at all stages of life and in all circumstances? We presented policy suggestions in the following areas:
We invite you to read the full document. November 2008 There is now a new way to donate online to Consistent Life. The Ammado service provides some options not available through other ways:
Please note that Ammado does not collect your contact information and transmit it to us. If you join through Ammado, please please send us an email with your contact information, telling us you are contributing through Ammado. That way we can put you on our mailing list. The methods we previously had to donate to us remain available. See our Join or Donate page to see your choices. September 13, 2008
August 14, 2008 We have known for a long time that the word “choice” in the abortion debate doesn't mean what it means in regular English, having become a euphemism for abortion rather than a matter of actually having options. Now we find that “science” means what the American Psychological Association (APA) says it means, rather than what those of us trained in a university might have been taught. We start with the appointment of the Task Force. I'm an APA member, and on the Board of Division 48, peace psychology, though of course not on the APA Council which makes the decisions. Though I keep my ears attuned, the task force membership was appointed and explicitly not open to any more nominations by the time I first heard about it. Actually, there never had been any call for nominations. Membership had been decided by Division 35, psychology of women, and the Council apparently rubber-stamped the selection. I knew the fix was in at that point and subsequent events have confirmed this, but I gamely kept trying to talk about balance and science. Having documented that three members of the task force were outspoken defenders of abortion and the remaining three had no public statements of positions, I immediately brought up the point of lack of the voice of skeptics wherever I could. Consistent Life sent out a letter to the entire Council last fall on this point, and received no response. I volunteered to be a reviewer of the Report, which means someone that gives feedback from a scientific point of view. They decided I had the credentials to do so, along with Priscilla Coleman and David Fergusson of New Zealand. I don't know the rest of the 20 reviewers; David is self-described as an “atheist pro-choicer,” but he shared his review with me and his opinion about the quality of the science therein was roughly the same as mine and Priscilla's. I got the original November 2 report and to be polite I will say that I spent 30-40 hours giving them careful and relatively gentle line-by-line commentary. Once I got the March 6 revised version, I saw they had re-organized, based a more clearly worded conclusion on a whole different approach, and rather than including my alternative perspectives on several previous arguments for balance, they had simply left them out. But there was one major improvement: the short section on the abortion-as-trauma “conceptual framework” had dropped the grotesque caricature of pro-lifers and instead offered an explanation that left the reader no longer puzzled as to why anybody might think abortion was traumatic. But I was startled to dig in and realize that the new rationale for the conclusion was based on only one study – using British women where there was a screening requirement we don't have in the U.S. The fact of many methodological flaws in that study isn't really the point, since in the real world all studies have some flaws. Far more important is that the study doesn't support the conclusion, since it did find more drug overdoses in women who had abortions compared to others. Also important is that it doesn't even address the conclusion, since it was only looking at extreme outcomes – drug overdoses rather than over-all substance abuse, for example. (See http://wiki.afterabortion.org/index.php?title=Gilchrist#Weaknesses for discussion of the one study). We don't draw such a sweeping conclusion from only one study. As I said, they all have flaws. We put together a group of studies so that the flaws may balance out. One thing needs to be replicated before it's taken seriously. Setting aside the quality of the study itself, citing only one study in support of a politically-desired conclusion cannot be explained in any other way than a politically-motivated exercise. This is not a debatable point. This is Quantitative Research 101. * So I immediately sent out a memo to the APA governance committees who were now reviewing the report, in case they missed it – it was buried on then page 66 (in the actual released report, it's on page 68; look for the conclusion and note the lone citation in parentheses). There was no response. Consistent Life, upon noting a quarter of Council members had changed with the new year, sent out its letter again. This time it got a response, and we sent another letter replying to it. (See http://wthrockmorton.com/2008/07/14/anti-violence-group-expresses-concerns-over-apa-abortion-task-force/) I am aware that many other people sent letters as well, making various points. I also sent a memo to all Council members on the idea that a better report would be one that pointed out where the consensus is and where the controversies still are, rather than taking one side in the controversy. This takes me to the Council meeting of Wednesday, August 13, 2008. This was the first item on the agenda. Speaking for it were endorsers and people commenting that it was good science on the grounds that it was done by good scientists who had really worked hard on it. I approached the microphone and started to speak as others had, but the president interrupted and said he didn't recognize me as a member of the Council; was I one? I said no, he said I would need permission to speak, I asked for it, and he gave it so long as I was short. I was told later that it is exceedingly rare that anyone outside of Council is allowed to speak at all. That may help account for the fact that once I made points similar to the above, no one commented on them. To this moment, I don't have an answer to the basic point of how one study, whether an excellent study or not, could possibly be reasonably seen as supporting a bold and ideologically-desired conclusion. I'm an outsider who didn't even think to mention my credentials beyond the relevant point of being a reviewer. One person did later comment on the letters Council members had received, with a smirk. No content was commented upon. The vote to receive the report was near unanimous; I believe 6 abstentions. I asked the president-elect about this later, and he said that the vote was like a ribbon-cutting at a building; the building was already built, all the work had already gone in, so that point in time was too late. I pointed out that I had been making these points all along, and he acknowledged that I had been making valid points all along since he had seen me doing it. I told him APA had made a mistake since it was going to lose lobbying influence as people discounted the idea that it was actually promoting science, and he didn't deny it; he thanked me for trying. More studies are coming out, of course. According to the logic of the report itself, if only one study can establish the conclusion, then in theory it should only take one study to knock it down, so long as the new study has the same strengths as the 13-year-old one. But that would be taking the assumption that APA was actually interested in keeping up with real science, an assumption for which at this point I have no evidence. The Report dismisses many of the studies of post-abortion trauma on the grounds that women were already traumatized by the time they showed up to the abortion clinic. This is surely true, but doesn't it then follow that it's highly irresponsible to simply give them surgery and then send them home? If we have clear and undisputed information that a disproportionate amount of traumatized women (domestic abuse, substance abuse, etc.) are showing up at any medical location, how can it be reasonable medical care to not screen for this and provide opportunity for intervention? I pointed this out in my review, but they didn't see this point as worthy of inclusion. Meanwhile, the report does say that they do know that there are groups that have higher negative aftermath: teenagers, women who are pressured, women who have more than one, those abortions that late-term. This is information we can put forth as at least being a consensus among all reviewers. *"Do not interpret a single study's results as having importance independent of the effects reported elsewhere in the relevant literature. The thinking presented in a single study may turn the movement of the literature, but the results in a single study are important primarily as one contribution to a mosaic of study effects." - Wilkison, L. & Task Force on Statistical Inference, APA Board of Scientific Affairs (1999). Statistical methods in psychology journals: Guidelines and expectations. American Psychologist, page 602.August 8, 2008 [Webservant's Note: Mary Rider is a co-founder, Board member and former Executive Director of Consistent Life.] My wife, Mary Rider, a mother of eight children, received a 15-day jail sentence for praying during a North Carolina execution. Mary, cofounder of the Fr. Charlie Mulholland Catholic Worker House in Garner, N.C., was sentenced to 15 days in the Wake County Jail on August 7, stemming from her August 18, 2006 arrest for trespass during a protest of the execution of Sammy Flippen at Raleigh's Central Prison. Mary and three others attempted to symbolically enter the prison to stop the execution. At a police line, the four knelt in prayer in the driveway where witnesses enter the prison. Mary, 48, who has six children age 14 or less, was sentenced to jail after telling Wake County Superior Court Judge Michael Morgan that her conscience would not allow her to pay a $100 fine and $130 court costs into a system that oppressed the poor and carried out executions in her name. A social worker, Mary told the judge she would agree to perform community service in lieu of the fine and court costs. The judge, a firm and cold man, who frequently undercut Mary's attempts to defend herself based on Catholic Moral Teaching and the First Amendment, seemed to take personally Mary's conviction that the “judicial system” is racist and oppressive. “Ms. Rider has stated that the judicial system is one too flawed and too imperfect,” Morgan said. “I am a member of this system.” By agreeing to give Mary community service, he was in a sense validating her criticisms of the system, Morgan said. “It's easy to open your wallet, pay that money and walk out of court,” Mary's pro bono lawyer, Tim Vanderweert, told the judge. “It's much more difficult to perform community service.” In the course of the three-day jury trial, Morgan did not allow expert witness - renowned Constitutional law professor Dan Pollitt - to testify to the jury as to why Mary's actions in trying to stop Sammy's execution were legally valid under the Constitution. Doing so “would invade the providence of the jury,” Morgan said. He also limited the testimony of Duke Divinity School professor of Christian ethics Stanley Hauerwas, who tried to make the case that Mary's actions in defense of life were justified by Papal decree and Church teaching. “I am a Christian theologian, and the subject of theology is God,” Hauerwas told the court. “Catholic moral teaching is the longest tradition of Church history. Since Christians are a people who worship a person who died at the hands of the state, that being capital punishment, Christianity's relationship to the state is at the heart of what Catholic ethics is about ... Christians are not allowed to give their ultimate loyalties to the state.” In her testimony, Mary shared a story about a time she was called to jury duty at age 18 in Eastern North Carolina. Although she was not selected to sit for the capital murder trial, Mary, who is also a mitigation specialist, said she was surprised to learn that only jurors who supported the death penalty could be seated. “The only people in the jury are those who believe firmly in the death penalty,” Mary said. “It seems like you're stacking the cards against the defendant already.” The judge instructed the jury to only consider the question of whether Mary trespassed or not. Although the jurors were out more than an hour, those initially opposed to conviction were won over. One juror told me after the verdict that since they didn't get to hear Prof. Pollitt, they were unable to acquit her. In her sentencing, Mary read the story from Acts when Peter said he “must obey God and not men.” “I am choosing to suffer for my faith and fidelity to Jesus,” Mary told the judge. “Spending time in jail for me would be an honor. Rather than a deterrent, it would be a privilege to encourage others to do the same.” The judge said he had no choice but to sentence Mary to 15 days. The jailers placed handcuffs on Mary as her children openly sobbed on the front row of the gallery. “You're lucky to have a wife like that, and you're lucky to have a mother like that,” Professor Pollitt told me and my daughter, Veronica. Indeed we are. Mary is expected to be in the Wake County Jail until Aug. 21. To write her: Mary RiderWake County Jail P.O. Box 2419 Raleigh, NC 27602 or at her home address: 124 Perdue St. Garner N.C. 27529 August 5, 2008
Consistent Life member Mary Grace gave us the above bumper sticker design. You can now purchase this bumper sticker from our on-line store at CafePress. July 15, 2008 John Dear, S.J., a Consistent Life endorser who also appears on our video, has written a reflection for National Catholic Reporter on how consistent life ethic advocates should respond in the American election season, called Nonviolence and the presidential campaign. June 2008 Northern Spirit Radio in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, interviewed Rachel MacNair of Consistent Life and Friends for a Pro-Life Peace Testimony (FPPT), along with Stan Becker of Quaker Earthcare Witness, about abortion and the consistent life ethic. The interview was prompted by the series of ads Consistent Life and FPPT sponsored in Friends Journal, and the Letters to the Editor responding to them. The program dealt with the issue of whether or when an unborn child is human life, and how the issue of abortion relates to other life issues. You can listen to the program on the Web. December 10, 2007 Internationally known peace activist and scholar Gordon Zahn died on December 9, 2007 in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. Zahn was deeply committed to the consistent life ethic and was a Consistent Life endorser. Zahn was a World War II conscientious objector. He helped found Pax Christi USA, a Consistent Life member group. His best known book is probably In Solitary Witness, the story of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian peasant beheaded in 1943 for refusing to serve in the German army. In no small part due to Zahn's making this story known, Jaegerstaetter was beatified just this October by Pope Benedict XVI. For more about Zahn's life and work, see Let Us Now Praise Gordon Zahn. October 21, 2007
Ross S. Heckmann was elected to the Consistent Life Board at the October 21, 2007 Board Meeting. Ross is an attorney with his own practice in Arcadia, California. Ross has long been active in the pro-life movement. He has worked with pregnancy centers and to stop Planned Parenthood from starting a new facility in his area. He currently serves as President of both California Democrats for Life and Californians Against Planned Parenthood. More recently, Ross has also become active in peace work. He helped to start a monthly peace vigil in Monrovia, and is involved in the Foothills Peace Coalition. At the same Board meeting, incumbent Board members Carol Crossed, Rose Evans and Rachel MacNair were re-elected to new three-year terms. September, 2007
Glen Howard Stassen recently endorsed the Mission Statement of Consistent Life. Stassen is Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary, and a well-known Baptist theologian. Among the books he has written or edited are Just Peacemaking: Ten Practices for Abolishing War, Capital Punishment: A Reader, Just Peacemaking: Transforming Initiatives for Justice and Peace, Journey into Peacemaking, and Authentic Transformation: A New Vision of Christ and Culture (with John Howard Yoder and Diane Yeager). Stassen is a contributor to Sojourners Magazine. He also has written articles for many other publications, including the Journal of Religious Ethics, The Christian Century, Christianity and Crisis, Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, and Journal of Biblical Literature. For Stassen, the consistent life ethic is both the embodiment of Christian ethics and a personal journey: I am consistently pro-life. My son David is one witness. For my family, “pro-life” is personal. My wife caught rubella in the eighth week of her pregnancy. We decided not to terminate, to love and raise our baby. David is legally blind and severely handicapped; he also is a blessing to us and to the world. September, 2007 Consistent Life has placed a series of three ads in the Friends Journal, an independent publication serving the Society of Friends (Quakers). We hope this is just the start of a renewed campaign of ads in appropriate publications.
June 20, 2007 [Consistent Life President Bill Samuel was the lead-off speaker for the annual conference of Democrats for Life of America on June 20, 2007, which focused this year on the theme of The Consistent Life Ethic. This is the text of his remarks.] I thank Kristen for the opportunity to open this Conference. I appreciate Democrats for Life choosing the theme of the consistent life ethic for this year’s Conference. I am completely convinced that life issues are inherently related to each other. And I believe this includes institutional violence represented by such things as racism and exploitative economic systems as well as abortion, war and the death penalty. Respect for human life and dignity needs to be across the board, not selective. The means we use to an ostensible end are critical. One can not achieve a good end by using evil means. One can only justify violence if one assumes, whether explicitly or implicitly, that violence is redemptive. But it is not. Remember that World War I was the “war to end all wars.” The history of wars since reaffirms that violence produces more violence in an endless cycle unless societies are willing to learn from this history and change course. You can not solve problems in a marriage by beating your spouse. You don’t really address the problems of a pregnant woman in desperate circumstances by killing her unborn baby. You can’t defeat terrorism by using terrorist-like tactics against terrorists. You can’t show that killing is wrong by killing a murderer. Violence will never address the roots of social problems. Back in the 1960’s, H. Rap Brown got a lot of attention with his statement that “Violence is as American as apple pie.” His statement was absolutely correct. Unfortunately, he used that statement as a basis for those representing the oppressed using violence since the oppressors do. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. also understood the American habit of violence. But his response recognized that this needed to change and that means needed to be consistent with the desired ends. Therefore he used transformative nonviolence to achieve positive social change. Dr. King also understood the connections among issues, and refused to accept the criticism that his mission was civil rights, and he should not sully the issue by speaking out on such other life and dignity issues as poverty and war. Dr. King’s insistence on connecting the issues may have been key in his martyrdom. We should honor his legacy by insisting on a consistent, life-affirming approach in dealing with all social issues. The American history of addiction to violence includes many aspects. We have a two century history of wars of aggression and oppression, seeking to extend our territory through military conquest and repeatedly intervening with American troops to thwart the will of the people in other countries when we thought American economic interests were threatened. We engaged in genocide against native Americans, and treated those from Africa as mere property. We have been one of the major users of the death penalty, which the record of knowingly prosecuting innocent people indicates is at least as much ritual sacrifice as a misguided attempt at justice. We have a high abortion rate, and fewer restrictions on abortion than most other countries. Despite being one of the world’s wealthiest countries, we have an economic system which results in many being mired in the institutional violence of poverty. Yes, there are good things about American history and society as well. But we must confess where we have gone wrong and are continuing to do so, and have the courage to move in a different direction. The United States is effectively an empire, with literally hundreds of major military bases scattered all across the globe. History demonstrates that all empires fall, and unless the U.S. changes course and voluntarily gives up the drive for world domination, it will fall too. The bankruptcy of American politics is demonstrated by the fact that the Democratic Presidential candidates in the so-called “top tier” all favor unlimited abortions, a larger standing military force, a larger military budget, a readiness to project American military power, and the death penalty. They sound better on poverty, but they are beholden to monied interests for their campaign dollars, and their support of a bloated military budget means the funds to really address social problems will not be available. Former President Eisenhower was right when he said over a half century ago, Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. When you exclude entitlement programs, most of which have their own financing, you find that military spending is over half of the controllable portion of the United States budget. Further, the United States spends more on the military than all other nations combined. If we are to be truly pro-life, we must firmly reject the priority given to wars and preparations for wars. The call to us remains as it was to the Israelites centuries ago, This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live (Deuteronomy 30:19) We need a transformative politics that turns America from its addiction to violence to policies that affirm human life and dignity. We need to stop killing not only the unborn, but also our alleged enemies, along with even more civilians who are “collateral damage,” and criminal offenders. And we need to address the institutional violence represented by such social conditions as racism and poverty amidst plenty. Unfortunately, when public figures like Jesse Jackson and Dennis Kucinich who have stood for something at least close to the consistent life ethic decide to enter a Democratic Presidential race they generally feel that they can only get the funds needed to run a campaign by pandering to the “pro-choice” groups. Therefore they do a 180° turn on abortion. But experience shows that this replacement of principle with ambition has not brought political success for these politicians. I hope Democrats for Life can have the effect of strengthening the positions of politicians who favor life across the spectrum of issues. Personally, I have long dreamed that Tony Hall, who is being honored at the dinner tonight, would run for President. Consistent Life, which I serve as President, is a network of hundreds of organizations, including Democrats for Life, and many individuals. Our mission statement is: We are committed to the protection of life, which is threatened in today's world by war, abortion, poverty, racism, capital punishment and euthanasia. We believe that these issues are linked under a 'consistent ethic of life'. We challenge those working on all or some of these issues to maintain a cooperative spirit of peace, reconciliation, and respect in protecting the unprotected. Literature from Consistent Life is available in the Conference packet. We also sell a number of products with a variety of consistent life messages, like the T-shirt I am wearing.  I do want to note that Consistent Life is not a political organization, and does not endorse any political party or candidate. Our members have diverse views on the role of the political process in furthering the consistent life ethic, and my own comments about political candidates are personal ones. Thank you for listening to me. I look forward to the rest of the Conference and the dinner. January 27, 2007  CL President Bill Samuel & CL Intern Corey Prachniak hold CL banner before 2007 March for Life Photo by Father Bernard A. Survil The Consistent Life banner was carried at both the January 22 March for Life and the January 27 March on Washington against the Iraq War. At both events, we made contact with other marchers who expressed appreciation for us making the connection among the life issues. December 28, 2006 Julie Shockley resigned as Secretary-Treasurer of Consistent Life earlier this month. The Board appreciates all she did while serving as an officer of Consistent Life. She took on the position during a time of transitions in the organization which made it a real challenge to keep the organization's finances in good order. During her time as Treasurer, she unified the records that had been kept by different people in the recent past, and made sure we were current with all legal obligations. Rose Evans, who had been Secretary prior to Julie assuming the position, stepped in to act as Secretary again in the interim. The duties of the Treasurer are falling upon President Bill Samuel until a new Treasurer is found. The Treasurer of Consistent Life maintains all financial records of the organization, receives and records contributions, disburses funds, maintains Consistent Life banking accounts, and files financial-related forms. As an officer of Consistent Life, the Treasurer also serves on the Executive Committee. Consistent Life urgently appeals to any supporters with the skills to perform this work who can make time available for it to offer their services. For more information and/or to offer your services, contact President Bill Samuel and/or Acting Secretary Rose Evans. Also let us know if you are aware of someone else suitable who might be invited to consider the position. While less urgent, Rose Evans would also like someone else to step into the Secretary position for the long term. The Secretary keeps official minutes and other records of the organization, maintains a record of the terms of Board members, prepares (in conjunction with the President) agendas for Board meetings, and serves on the Executive Committee. For more information and/or to offer your services, contact Acting Secretary Rose Evans. Consistent Life is a volunteer organization. Officers and Board members serve without monetary compensation. Out-of-pocket expenses are reimbursed by the organization. The positions of Secretary and Treasurer may be combined if the same person is willing to take on both roles. August 11, 2006 Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, author of Dead Man Walking and an endorser of the Consistent Life mission statement, withdrew her name from the endorsement of a New York Times ad urging the removal of George W. Bush from the Presidency. She had signed the ad based on a draft, and was not shown the final version before publication. Sister Helen's endorsement of the draft ad was based on opposition to President Bush's pursuit of war in Iraq, approval of torture, zealous promotion of imprisonment and executions, and fiscal policies causing an increase in poverty. Her statement withdrawing her endorsement said in part (emphasis in original): There is, however, one issue addressed in the ad that I cannot endorse, which if I had seen the final version of the ad would have led me to withhold my signature. The statement reads: “Your government is moving to deny women here and all over the world the right to birth control and abortion.” The life issues involved in the beginning of life are exceedingly complex. My stance on abortion is a matter of public record. I stand morally opposed to killing: war, executions, killing of the old and demented, the killing of children, unborn and born. As I have stated publicly many times, I stand squarely within the framework of “the seamless garment” ethic of life. I believe that all of life is sacred and must be protected, especially in the vulnerable stages at the beginning of life and its end. The full statement can be read at Sister Helen Prejean's Web site. Consistent Life thanks Sister Helen for her clear statement on the consistent ethic of life. August 2, 2006
Consistent Life is pleased to announce that Randall Balmer has endorsed its Mission Statement. Dr. Balmer is Ann Whitney Olin Professor of American Religion at Barnard College, Columbia University. Dr. Balmer has published widely both in academic and scholarly journals, and in the popular press. He is Editor-at-Large for Christianity Today. He has written or co-written ten published books, including recent works The Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism and Religion in Twentieth Century America. Dr. Balmer has also written three scripts for documentaries shown on PBS. He was nominated for an Emmy for his work on Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America. In his article “Jesus Is Not a Republican” in the June 23, 2006 issue of The Chronicle Review, Dr. Balmer argued that evangelicals should expand their concern for human life:Evangelicals opposed to abortion would be well advised to follow some Catholic teaching a bit further on this issue. As early as 1984, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, the late archbishop of Chicago, talked about opposition to abortion as part of a “seamless garment” that included other “life issues”: care for the poor and feeding the hungry, advocacy for human rights, and unequivocal opposition to capital punishment. Surely the adoption of what Bernardin called a “consistent ethic of life” carries with it greater moral authority than opposition to abortion alone. July 23, 2006
Consistent Life is pleased to announce that Rachel Muha has agreed to join its Board. She describes some of her commitment to the cause of life and her personal life experiences below: I remember being a young journalism student and using the death penalty as the subject of an assignment. I argued against it in my paper and most of the students in the class were for it. I came from a small Catholic high school where everyone seemed to think the same and was now a student at Ohio State where each class was bigger than my whole high school so it was an introduction into the real world and into the work I didn't know I would be doing for the rest of my life. May 15, 2006 The Board of Consistent Life has issued an open letter to Amnesty International (AI) regarding AI's consideration of policy positions regarding abortion. AI's 2005 International Council Meeting decided to begin consideration of policies on three specific issues:
Consistent Life supported the first point, but asked AI to reflect on how much the other two points contradict it. We noted, “What you are basically saying is that governments have a responsibility to clean up after botched abortions, but should have no ability to prevent those botched abortions. They should simply allow the harm to occur, and then deal with it.” We asked that AI act consistently with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child, which states that every child “needs special safeguards and care, including legal protection, before as well as after birth.” We also noted that AI's points do not cover a woman's right to aftercare for the trauma which often follows having an abortion. Nor do they cover coerced abortion, or sex-selection abortions. We commented, “In these cases no one could argue whether abortion itself is clearly violence against women, and no policy could pretend to oppose violence against women while remaining silent on these points.” We observed that perpetration-induced traumatic stress (PITS) affects all those who kill other human beings, including those who perform abortions as well as those who kill in war, in police actions or in executions. The effects of PITS lead to botched abortions, as is demonstrated by a number of cases involving legal abortions. We also observed that sincere advocates of certain life positions may sabotage their own goals by being inconsistent. For AI, its principled position against the death penalty, in which we stand in solidarity with them, “may be discredited if they advocate laws that allow imposition of the death penalty on innocent children without due process.” Most of the Consistent Life Board members have also written personally to AI. We have previously called (see our April 28 Action Alert) for people to contact AI on this issue. AI has indicated that the comment period ends on May 17. March 6, 2006
Consistent Life is pleased to announce that Linda Naranjo-Huebl has agreed to join its Board. Linda Naranjo-Huebl grew up in a large family in northwest Denver, Colorado (the "North Side"). She became involved with Denver's first independent crisis pregnancy center in 1981, and over the years she and her family hosted over fifty young pregnant women in their home, providing a supporting environment in which they could make plans for the future. In 1982 she joined Feminists for Life and worked with its Denver chapter over the years as a writer and speaker at colleges and other public forums and with various prolife coalitions promoting prolife and prowoman education and legislation initiatives. In 1995 she co-edited, along with Rachel MacNair and Mary Krane Derr, a collection of prolife feminist writings, Prolife Feminism: Yesterday and Today, which has recently been expanded and reissued. She serves on the board of directors of the Feminism and Nonviolence Studies Association and conducts research and teaching in the areas of women's studies, American ethnic literatures and history, and peace issues. In 2001, she obtained her Ph.D. in English, specializing in Women's and American Ethnic Literature, at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Linda continues her scholarship and teaching as a Professor of English at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She also remains close to her extended family as a part-time resident of Denver, Colorado. February 28, 2006 Today the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Scheidler v. National Organization of Women that Federal laws against racketeering and extortion can not be used to prevent demonstrations against abortions. It was the third time the Court had ruled on the case, which NOW initiated in 1986. Consistent Life has organized a number of national organizations and peace and justice leaders to sign an amicus brief to the Court each time. On this third trip to the Court, two major labor unions also signed on to the Consistent Life brief. Groups which are not necessarily pro-life on abortion joined the brief because they could see that any group demonstrating for a cause would potentially be at risk if protest actions were treated as if they were racketeering and extortion. Because Consistent Life stands for six major life issues not only for the lives of the unborn, it was particularly well placed to bring a diverse coalition of groups together to urge the Court to protect the rights of Americans to express their views on any cause in public demonstrations. With regard to filing our amicus brief this last time, Consistent Life Board member Carol Crossed, who has spearheaded our efforts in this case, said, “Enough is enough. Why drag this on and on at enormous cost to people who have the courage to dissent?” Apparently the Court agreed with her. February 21, 2006 Scott Schaeffer-Duffy has accepted the Consistent Life Board's invitation for him to join the Board. He has the following to say about himself and his work for the consistent life ethic: I am a father of four, married to free-lance journalist Claire Schaeffer-Duffy. We have lived and worked together in the Catholic Worker movement since 1982, first in Washington, DC and since 1986 in Worcester, Massachusetts. I am a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester where I received a degree in religious studies. In 1976, while a student, I joined a group called Students for Life. We opposed all violence including war, abortion, and capital punishment. We became the strongest anti-war group on campus, opposing the draft, Trident Submarine, and ROTC. We also addressed abortion in writing and by attending the annual protest in Washington, DC where we often felt out of place with some of the other attendees. Since graduating, I have been very active in peacework here in the United States and also in various places of conflict around the world including Bosnia, Nicaragua, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Darfur, Sudan, and Vieques, Puerto Rico. I have been involved in numerous public vigils, protest, marches, fasts, and acts of nonviolent civil disobedience primarily against war, but also against abortion. I served three days in jail for holding a sign that read ban the bomb, not the baby during an Operation Rescue protest in Rhode Island. My wife and I have tried on several occassions to encourage others in the peace movement to consider opposition to abortion as a reasonable part of a nonviolent philosophy. We do this oftentimes through our newsletter, The Catholic Radical, which has been published six times a year since 1986. Every Good Friday, for at least 15 years, I have helped organize a Stations of the Cross procession in Worcester beginning at a Planned Parenthood Clinic and going to other locations to raise other issues like war, racism, sexism, violence against women, the death penalty, and environmental harm. With the Seamless Garment Network, we produced a film about those Stations of the Cross. In January, 2006, I helped organize a march from the Planned Parenthood clinic to a US Marine Corps Reserve Station to encourage peacemakers and pro-lifers to embrace both issues. We carried a large banner with said NO WAR, NO ABORTION, Unite Against Violence! We stirred up a great deal of passionate response from peace activists who support abortion rights. January 23, 2006  June 10, 2005 Brian D. McLaren, Founding Pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Spencerville, Maryland, signed the Mission Statement of Consistent Life. Brian is internationally known as a leader of what has come to be known as the "Emergent Church" or "Emerging Church" movement. He was named in the February 7, 2005 Time magazine as one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America. He is the author of several books, including A New Kind of Christian and A Generous Orthodoxy. Brian McLaren also made this additional statement: Who we are and what we do cannot be separated. If we have a casual attitude toward the sacredness of creation in one area - say, in being careless about pollution or creation care - then we become the kinds of people who are more likely to be casual toward - say, going to war or caring for the poor. If we consistently practice saying yes to convenience and greed in one area, we will find it harder to say no to convenience and greed in other areas. But if we are consistent in practicing care regarding all areas of life - even when doing so is costly or inconvenient, we will become people caring, consistent people. And with more and more people like that, the world will experience greater healing, harmony, wisdom, and peace. This, I believe, pleases our Creator - who is always consistent and caring towards all creation. December 7, 2004 New features at consistent-life.org Action alerts email list: To receive e-mail alerts about actions you can take to promote the consistent life ethic, send e-mail to actionalerts@consistent-life.org. Future alerts will also be published on the "Action" page. Coming soon: the Consistent Life Blog. Previous headlines 06/28/2004 04/20/2004 03/01/2004 08/30/2003 Press Clippings (Note: articles prior to 2003 will refer to Consistent Life by our old name, the Seamless Garment Network.) This letter was written in response to an editorial in the National Catholic Reporter by Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, which was highly critical of the Seamless Garment Network for our position against abortion. It was sent to the NCR but was not published. SGN Vice-President Rachel MacNair was quoted in "The Price of Valor", in the July 12, 2004 edition of The New Yorker. "Liberal activists oppose abortion as part of 'seamless' package" -- an article about the SGN. A Consistent Pro-Life Ethic, by SGN Vice-President Rachel MacNair. This article appeared in the April 1999 issue of Quaker Life magazine. The same issue also featured an article on the Network's history by former Executive Director Carol Crossed. |
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