#418 Families Belong Together, Korematsu - July 6, 2018
We Join the Nation-Wide Rallies Consistent life ethic advocates joined other protesters across the U.S in “Families Belong Together” rallies against the Trump administration separating children of immigrants from their parents. Member group Rehumanize International organized a contingent in the Washington DC rally, co-sponsored by the Consistent Life Network and the American Solidarity Party. Consistent Life board member Julia Smucker attended another rally in Portland, Maine, where she saw someone with a sign reading "Where is the pro-life outrage?" She comments, “I managed to find the sign-holder in the crowd and said that I was (part of) the answer to her sign, that I was there because I'm pro-life from womb to tomb and completely share her outrage over the separation of families. I also mentioned the consistent-life contingent at the DC rally . . . she was gracious, thanked me for being there and told me to keep rallying other people like me.”
Rosemary Geraghty of Rehumanize International at the D.C. rally
Dane Garrett of the American Solidarity Party, with family, at the D.C. rally.
Two signs from the Portland, Maine, Families Belong Together rally
Silver Lining in a Footnote In 1944, Fred Korematsu brought a court case against the World War II exclusion orders against him and his fellow Japanese Americans putting them in internment camps. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against him. The Korematsu decision is therefore one of the terrible Court decisions. Fred Korematsu had his conviction later overturned, and the executive and legislative branches have decried the decision. But how was the Court to overrule the precedent without having a case? The Court doesn’t make rulings without a pertinent case. It’s finally happened. In the Trump v. Hawaii case decided last week it was essentially officially overruled, or at least as the New York Times reports, "tossed out." Chief Justice Roberts said, “Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history, and — to be clear — ‘has no place in law under the Constitution.’”
Good News
The British court of appeals has upheld laws banning assisted suicide, saying: 'It is legitimate in this area for the legislature to seek to lay down clear and defensible standards in order to provide guidance for society, to avoid distressing and difficult disputes at the end of life and to avoid creating a slippery slope leading to incremental expansion over time of the categories of people to whom similar assistance for suicide might have to [be] provided.”
The Missouri Democratic Party has voted to welcome pro-life members into the party. One U.S. state is a start!
Quotation of the Week
Kristine Kruszelnicki Pro-Life Means Born Lives Too! Unlike those who often accuse pro-lifers of being “pro-birth” (pro-choice liberals and humanists who balk at the separation of toddlers from their own parents, but not at the separation of fetuses from their own limbs) I’m a progressive-liberal-atheist-humanist, who also opposes abortion. . . .I can’t stay silent or turn a blind eye to the suffering of children elsewhere! Whether it’s children (or adults) being trafficked . . . children threatened by war … every last one of these lives matter! . . . Now in all fairness, the idea that pro-lifers should be “single-issue” and only focus on abortion is understandable. . . as a movement we don’t have unlimited time and resources to devote equally to all matters that jeopardize human life. No one would reproach the cancer society for not being just as active in fighting heart disease. We can’t all do everything. But we can all do something.
Let’s be honest: how much does it cost to issue a statement that separating a child from his asylum-seeking parents is wrong? How much effort or funds does it take to call an elected official to ask them to make a difference for children in any of these other areas? I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the pro-life movement should take on every cause with the same fervour as abortion, but surely we ought not to be called out for staying silent in the face of child suffering!
Responses/News tips/Questions to share are all welcome.
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