#481 Legal Happenings, Climate Change October 4, 2019
Legal Things Are Happening Abortion
Added to the list of peace-and-life referendums next year is that the Louisiana legislature has put a referendum on the ballot to add to the Louisiana constitution that “nothing shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion.” It was sponsored by a Democrat, then-Rep. (soon to be Sen.) Katrina Jackson (pictured). Euthanasia The U.S. Congress is considering the Palliative Care & Hospice Education & Training Act. Apparently some euthanasia opponents have questioned whether it’s sneaking the practice of hastening death into the law. But Wesley Smith, widely recognized for his expertise on euthanasia, explains why it would instead be very helpful for prevention. Nonviolent alternatives are, after all, a prime way of opposing violence. Death Penalty The Death Penalty Information Center has a continually updated page on legislative activity in the U.S. War September 26 was a big day for the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW): at a ceremony at UN headquarters in New York, 9 countries signed and 5 ratified the Treaty, bringing it even closer to entry into force. Poverty & Racism There are still several states (plus the 13th Amendment to the U.S. constitution) that ban slavery – except for convicted criminals. Nebraska and Utah will have amendments on the ballot in 2020 to delete the exceptions from their state constitutions. These have also been added to our original list of peace-and-life referendums, where you’ll find other possibilities for ballot measures in the U.S. states next year.
Come to the Rehumanize Conference in New Orleans! We are co-sponsoring the Conference on Life, Peace and Justice, hosted by member group Rehumanize International, which will be on October 18-20 at Loyola University in New Orleans. Conference sessions will cover many life issues and include presentations by CLN Vice President Rachel MacNair on how violence harms its perpetrators; Board member Sarah Terzo on countering ableism in medicine; and President John Whitehead on opposition to nuclear weapons. If you register before October 12 using the code FRIENDS19, you can get 25% off conference registration.
2018 Rehumanize International group shot
Latest CLN Blog Post: Climate Change
The United Nations has just finished a Climate Action Summit, and September 20 was an international day of student strikes and massive demonstrations. The dangers of climate change are in the news, and will be for some time. The dangers climate change poses within our set of issues are covered by John Whitehead in Climate Change and the Consistent Life Ethic: An Opportunity to Connect Issues.
Quotation of the Week Charles Camosy Resisting Throwaway Culture, p. 127 [T]he prenatal child . . . belongs to a uniquely vulnerable, exploited, and discarded population subject to terrible violence. Abortion's moral and legal complexity, however, comes from the fact that the mother of a prenatal child herself often belongs to a vulnerable, exploited, and discarded population . . . The CLE is well-positioned to dive into this complexity. Binary and simplistic "us vs. them" arguments that pit vulnerable populations against each other dominate abortion discourse . . . but the CLE rejects such thinking.
Responses/News Tips/Questions to share are all welcome.
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