#435 Elections, Gosnell & The Hate U Give - November 2, 2018
U.S. Elections November 6
As a civic-minded non-profit, we encourage all our readers to vote, and our U.S. readers to vote on November 6.
Candidates: Unfortunately, we don’t have information to offer to help inform the vote. Consistent-life candidates are hard to come by, and when found are generally running for lower offices, so consistent-life voters have different voting strategies. Referendums: We’re unable this year to find any state referendums dealing with the death penalty or assisted suicide (the usual ballot version of euthanasia), and war issues are rarely ballot issues. There are three on abortion: one restricting taxpayer funding in Oregon, another stating the state constitution grants no “right” to abortion in Alabama, and doing both together in West Virginia.
Rehumanize International – Conference Videos
Rehumanize’s YouTube channel will be posting some of the video sessions of the conference. The channel has other interesting videos as well. Picture of attendees below:
Pregnant Women in Custody Act
H.R. 6805 provides support for prenatal care for pregnant women in custody. It also bans shackling pregnant incarcerated women. Congresswoman Karen Bass introduced the legislation with a majority of women in the House (both Republican and Democrat) as cosponsors. It may advance later this year or early next year. The wide co-sponsorship includes representatives from both sides of the abortion debate. This doesn’t deal directly with abortion, but it does do so indirectly. Anything that makes pregnancy easier on women, or avoids making it harder, helps stop abortions—in addition to having its own merit. Women in jail are an especially vulnerable population and are disproportionately of minority races.
Grassroots and STDs
Planned Parenthood’s own stats show they provided contraception for 2.1 million people, but STD/STI testing and treatment for 4.5 million people—more than twice as many. Our web page at Grassroots Defunding: Finding Alternatives to Planned Parenthood has therefore added a page explaining the importance of finding alternatives for STI testing. Also, we want to encourage Pregnancy Resource Centers, which often make a point of being near PP centers to add STI testing to their services when they can. We’ve also added a set of suggestions for projects that students could get done in one semester at the bottom of our campus page.
Latest CLN Blog Post: Gosnell and The Hate U Give
The movie on abortionist Kermit Gosnell was ranked #10 in audience share the weekend it came out, so despite the low number of theaters showing it, it’s done rather well. One of the many themes brought out in the movie is the lethal aspects of racism. The following weekend, The Hate U Give came out (ranking #5 in audience share), and it covered another aspect of lethal racism: police shootings of unarmed African Americans. Rachel MacNair reviews this theme in both films together in Movies with Racism Themes: Gosnell and The Hate U Give. Rachel also covers the psychology of the trauma of committing acts of killing, because it helps explain some of Gosnell’s behavior.
Quotation of the Week Shane Claiborne (CLN endorser) 2016 book: Executing Grace, p. 231 Quoting an anonymous executioner Another example of killing as trauma, which applies to all our issues: I started to have some horrible nightmares. It was the faces of the men that I executed. I woke up and saw them literally sitting on the edge of my bed. I'd move over to make room for them. They didn't say anything to me. They just looked.
Responses/News tips/Questions to share are all welcome.
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