#381 Quirky videos, Legislation, Down Syndrome - October 6, 2017
Consistently Quirky
Rehumanize International (RI) offers a series of
short videos called “Consistently Quirky.”
To appeal to different audiences, the videos
vary widely in content and style. For example, one is a thought experiment which reasons out how nebulous “human rights” work out in practice: Storytime: Inconsistent Ideologies. Another has three women taking Bill Nye to task in Bill Nye the Science Denier Guy: A Response to Bill Nye’s Abortion “Argument.”
Also: there’s still time to register for RI’s Life/Justice/Peace Conference in Pittsburgh, October 20-22, 2017
Legislative Opportunities to Act and Educate ∞ A group of 5 Republicans and 4 Democrats have introduced a resolution in the US House of Representatives opposing assisted suicide. See the release announcing it, a story with personal accounts from sponsors, and an opinion piece in The Hill from the head of the main citizens coalition behind it. ∞ The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act has passed the U.S. House of Representatives, 237-189. This would ban abortion of babies after they’ve reached 20 weeks, with limited exceptions. The bill now faces a tough struggle in the US Senate. ∞ The European Parliament has passed language that adds banning abortion as “violence against women.” They also failed to condemn sex-selection abortions. As Marie Smith put it, “this report appears stuck in an antiquated pro-abortion mindset that fails to recognize that the lives of women and girls need to be valued right from the start and not just after birth.”
Latest CL Blog: Speech for a Peacemaker Award Mary Rider, who was for a time our executive director and is still on our Advisory Board, and her husband Patrick O’Neill, were honored last Friday by North Carolina Peace Action for their local work. Mary tells the tale of gently introducing the consistent life ethic in that context, including her speech in accepting the award.
Quotation of the Week Shane Claiborne July 2, 2017, Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation What I love about Mother Teresa is that her life was her witness. She wasn’t a champion of unborn children because she wore a t-shirt that said “Abortion Is Murder,” but because she welcomed mothers and children. In essence, she said, “If you can’t raise your child, we’ll do it together.” That’s the kind of embodiment that comes as we seek to marry our beliefs to our actions. As Brian McLaren says, “It’s not just are we pro-life or pro-choice, but how are we pro-active?” Are we willing to take responsibility for our ideologies? In my neighborhood that means we’ve got to care for a fourteen-year-old girl and her child together.
Responses/News tips/Questions to share are all welcome. Send to weekly@consistent-life.org.
