#578 - Peace & Life: Statue Down / Mexico - September 10, 2021
Around the Web
The Washington Post published a September 5 opinion piece, Our duty to challenge Catholic politicians who support abortion rights by Salvatore Cordileone. He compares the current controversy about administering the Eucharist to abortion supporters to the historical controversy with racial segregationists. Being a non-sectarian group, we don’t take a position on who gets the Eucharist. But drawing parallels between abortion support and racism is right up our alley.
Our board member Richard Stith has a letter in The New York Times, the 7th of nine letters about caregiving. He said, “I think that one arrow in our quiver of resistance to euthanasia should be to point out the happy aspects of maladies like Alzheimer's, Down syndrome, etc.” He offers beautiful comments about his wife, Rosemarie.
“Women Deserve Better,” the website of practical tips from our member group Feminists for Life, has these new offerings:
Good News: Confederate Statue Comes Down
Finally, the last of the white-supremacy statues erected in the 1890s in Richmond, Virginia was taken down Wednesday. Its racism was the explicit reason for removal, but it was also a war memorial. We explain how this fits into the consistent life ethic in a topic page on War Memorials on our Peace and Life Referendums site (which has recently had several updates, including an added idea for future referendums).
Bad News: Mexico Supreme Court Decriminalizes Abortion
Decriminalization isn’t the same as legalization, but it says there are human beings who shouldn’t be protected by criminal law.
Some states in Mexico have more protective laws against abortion and other states having less protective laws. A study published in 2015 showed the maternal mortality rate was lower in the states with more protective (“restrictive”) laws, contrary to the assertions of abortion availability advocates. Authors attributed this to the greater female literacy, skilled attendance at birth, low birth weight, clean water, sanitation, and less intimate partner violence in those states.
That works statistically, but we still have to ask: why do the states with “less permissive” laws on abortion do so much better in those aspects of women’s health? And why to the Mexican states that permit abortion do worse?
From the consistent life ethic perspective, this situation makes perfect sense. Sensitivity to women’s needs connects all these issues.
Our Latest Blog Post
Our member group Rehumanize International had its annual conference this last weekend, online this year for the second time. We offer some comments in #Rehumanize 2021.
Quotation of the Week
In honor of the Jewish High Holy Days (from Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement), this year from September 7 to 16, we offer these three short quotations:
Deuteronomy 30:19
"I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore, choose life, that you may live, you and your children."
Jeremiah 22:3
This is what Adonai [the Lord] says: “Do what is right and just; rescue the wronged from their oppressors; do nothing wrong or violent to the stranger, orphan or widow; don’t shed innocent blood in this place.”
Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:9; Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 37a
Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he [or she] destroyed an entire world.
And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he [or she] saved an entire world."