#451 Never Look Away, Criminal Homicide - March 8, 2019
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Charles Camosy offers his opinion in “Abortion Survivors Protection Act vote shows how both parties are unserious” (February 26, 2019). He says: “Democratic Party leaders claim to stand for health care for all, especially the most vulnerable. But as with so many of their principles, things change when it comes to abortion. . . . Republicans, unfortunately, seem more intent on playing their usual politics rather than igniting a true moral revolution . . . If they had been serious about passing the bill, they would have worked with moderate Democrats to add amendments that would support women in difficult circumstances . . . Those of us who have a consistent life ethic once again face a terrible dilemma of choosing between the only two viable political parties, despite the fact that both are totally unserious.”
CLN Vice President Rachel MacNair has a couple of blog posts with the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict: “Encouraging Agents of Repression to Defect: Psychology for Activists,” and “Defection as Therapy? A Closer Look at the Trauma of Repressing.” These are part of their series, The Paradox of Repression (the paradox being that nonviolent movements often actually grow when governments try to repress them).
Never Look Away One of the Oscar nominees for Best Foreign Language Film was Never Look Away, a story that spans an artist’s life as a boy in Nazi Germany and a man in East Germany, fleeing to West Germany right before the Berlin Wall was built. It’s of interest to history buffs and/or people interested in how art can be therapeutic to traumatized lives. For consistent-lifers, its highly personal portrayal of the Nazi euthanasia program is shown as historically connected to war. It’s also another film in which an abortion is inflicted on a woman who’s devastated about it. The abortion is performed by her formerly Nazi father, an ob/gyn, for eugenic reasons. He doesn’t think the baby’s father is worthy for his bloodline. (While the film didn’t win the Oscar, it has won other awards)
This theme of a coerced abortion as part of a sea of violence isn’t a common one in award-winning or in Hollywood movies. But another example of a Hollywood movie in which abortion was inflicted by men who see the woman has having no say is the Ides of March (see the third movie in our blog post).
Latest CLN Blog Post Does Socially-Approved Killing Increase Criminal Homicide? Rachel MacNair looks at what has been figured out about this question. There’s evidence that executions, war, and abortion work as models of violence – so when we allow those, the killing isn’t restricted to just those practices. While murder is quite illegal, perhaps it’s still more likely to happen when some kinds of killing are regarded as acceptable. Check out this post for some of the evidence.
Quotation of the Week Angelina Grimke, 1837 Note: This is Women’s History Month, and today (March 8) is International Women’s Day, making this quotation especially suitable.
I fully believe that so far from keeping different moral reformations entirely distinct that no such attempt can ever be successful. They are bound together in a circle like the sciences; they blend with each other like the colors of the rainbow; they are the parts only of our glorious whole. (Frederick Douglass said it more simply: “All great reforms go together.”)
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