#351 Life Matters, Outreach, Liberal-Conservative? - March 10, 2017
Life Matters Journal – Latest Issue
This issue (Volume 5, Issue 4) focuses on Conscientious Objection. Articles include: “Can We Hyde War Taxes?” (by our National Program Coordinator, Thad Crouch), “Physician Assisted Suicide and Therapeutic Ideation,” “Refusing Lethal Medicine,” “Lengthening Limits to Liberty for Life,” “Election 2016: No Conscientious Objection Allowed,” and a short story called “The Killing Game.”
We Reach Out to a Congress of around 40,000 People The Consistent Life Network has had a presence at the Religious Education Congress (RECongress) for the past two years, but this year we were excited to be asked to have our own booth! CLN board members Rachel MacNair and Lisa Stiller staffed the table. The RECongress included social justice-themed workshops during each workshop session. Every year there’s a walk to support ongoing efforts to end the death penalty in California. With a large Latino and Asian presence, workshops on diversity and immigration attract large numbers. We were able to speak to people from Australia, Burkina Faso, Canada, Mexico, and the Philippines. Our "No Abortion, No War, No Death Penalty" buttons were very popular. Lisa also managed to make contact with other people staffing booths in the huge exhibit hall, and promote our 30th anniversary conference (August 4-6 near Philadelphia, more details coming next week). Rachel went to the session where CL Endorser Jim Wallis spoke against racism. During Q&A, she asked whether people might be more effective on each of the issues of violence if they were consistently opposed across the board; Wallis knew that was a question about the consistent life ethic, and expanded nicely on the point in front of an audience of well over a thousand people.
Photo, left: Lisa Stiller; right, Rachel MacNair
Letter to the Editor: Watch Out About Liberal/Conservative In response to last week’s issue: Thanks for continuing to send this informative newsletter. I would like to offer a caution: in our attempts to prove that being pro-life is actually a “liberal” thing to do, we may be creating additional problems down the road. By proving that pro-life is “liberal” we are still attempting to fit pro-life into an ideological framework (now on the left). We have to get beyond ideology, whether left or right. These little societal boxes are the problem. Because this issue is so ideologically loaded right now, proving that anti-abortion is “liberal” will only alienate the “conservatives” who have led the charge in recent decades and we will be no further ahead. Just a caution. I am of course glad when anyone signs on to become pro-life. Layton Friesen Winnipeg, MB
Latest CL Blog Our latest blog is different from usual: now that we have 58 posts and counting, this week we list the whole set, under different categories: educating on issues, reflections, personal, history, government policy, literature. We intend to update this one each time a new blog post is added. We’ll add the link to the bottom of each week’s P&LC with the rest of the regular links, so you can always get back to it and glance over what’s available or find that particular one you remember and want to read again.
Quotation of the Week Christian Josi, former Executive Director, American Conservative Union “Life locked away, not death,” Washington Times, Monday, June 25, 2001 My fundamental problems with the death penalty began as a result of my personal concern, echoed by many on all sides of the political spectrum, that it was inconsistent for one to be “pro-life on the one hand and condone government execution on the other.”
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