#445 The Atlantic Covers Us - January 25, 2019
March for Life – Actions & Coverage This week’s blog post covers our participation in Roe anniversary events for 2019. Welcome to all the new subscribers!
In mainstream media, we got some exciting coverage in a report in The Atlantic: What It’s Like for Secular, Liberal Pro-lifers at the March for Life, by Ashley Fetters (January 19). The subtitle is: “Though some describe themselves as the ‘counterculture within the movement,’ many members of nonreligious and left-leaning pro-life groups feel welcome at the largely Christian, conservative event.” Of course, not all consistent-lifers are “left-leaning” and many of us are quite religious – the Consistent Life Network is non-partisan, non-sectarian, and prides itself on its members’ diversity. Still, a secular case can be made by religious people, and the article helps break stereotypes and describes us pretty well. It quotes Bill Samuel, a previous president of the Consistent Life Network. We also got a bit of coverage in a Washington Post story, which we quote from below. The reporter doesn’t quite make it to full balance (for example, no self-respecting pro-lifer would say she opposes abortion “rights”), but the reporter’s trying, and given past media biases, that’s worth encouraging.
How Would Martin Luther King, Jr. Stand? On the consistent life ethic: His confidant Dorothy Cotton was one of our endorsers, and his niece Alveda King gave our book an endorsement – but what would he have thought? He died before the term “consistent life ethic” was coined, and before abortion became a major public issue. Rob Arner covers what we know in Where Does Martin Luther King Jr. Fit into the Consistent Life Ethic? On the proposal of a wall on the U.S. southern border: Such an intense dispute as we now have over a wall to keep out immigrants didn’t arise in King’s day, but he did comment on the Berlin wall, and expressed a sentiment showing how he opposed such walls:
“For here on either side of the wall are God’s children and no man-made barrier can obliterate that fact” – September 13, 1964.
Quotation of the Week Michelle Boorstein, Religion Reporter Washington Post, January 18, 2019 In recent years, march organizers said they have tried to welcome a broader group of people who oppose abortion. . . . like Secular Pro-Life and Democrats for Life of America. . . . But on Friday, Trump and Pence spoke again. And again, some said they were unhappy to associate the antiabortion movement with a president they dislike. “I think the most dangerous thing we ever did is make this a partisan issue. It’s a human rights issue,” said Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa, 35, president of a group called New Wave Feminists that brought about 50 marchers to the event. She gave birth as a teenager, she said, so she understands the plight of women considering abortion. She came from Dallas to attend the march and said her group will participate in both the March for Life and the Women’s March the following day, a march which demonstrates against Trump and Republican policies. “We really want to challenge the GOP to be consistently pro-life,” she said. “What about children at the border? . . . They’re doing a lot of things that are anti-life.”
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