#602 - Peace & Life: Ukraine/Referendums/Forced Sterilization
Human Dignity Defies Attacks
Ukrainians have been put in a horrific position and much of the response is creative. For example, some (who still have Internet access) have posted anti-war messages in reviews for Russian restaurants, to get around Russian censorship. This in The New York Times: Ukrainian Protesters Take to the Streets in Occupied Kherson. More examples abound.
The Russian government has made it perilous to speak out against the war, but many Russians are brave:
Russian anti-war protester, posted March 6, 2022
Meanwhile, sympathy for Ukrainians fleeing the war has led to some creative ways of helping:
Parents in Poland left their baby strollers in rail road stations
for the Ukrainian moms that fled carrying their children.
offering arriving Ukrainian refugees a place to stay
Update on Referendums
The Oklahoma Senate is considering a bill to put a No Right to Abortion amendment on the ballot (timing unspecified).
Nevada activists are gathering signatures for two referendums for 2024, two variants of parental notification for minors’ abortions. Petitions must be turned in later this year.
Forced Sterilization
One issue on which pro-life and pro-choice advocates agree is opposing sterilization which is coerced or done without the person’s knowledge. The eugenic history and anti-child mindset bother pro-lifers greatly. The practice is explicitly anti-choice, so of major concern to people who take a pro-choice label, such as the National Women’s Law Center. They’ve put out a report documenting how much this is still happening: Forced Sterilization of Disabled People in the United States.
Discordant Benevolence?
Researchers offer a study saying that Large Numbers of Americans Morally Opposed to Abortion Would Still Help Friend or Family Member Seeking One.
They label it “discordant benevolence.” Some suggest this means people don’t take seriously the idea that abortion is murder. One wouldn’t help a frazzled mother kill her toddler.
But the Consistent Life Ethic has an insight: killing the toddler doesn’t have widespread social approval, and abortion does.
An analogy: duels. A man died in a duel (Alexander Hamilton, on the U.S. $10 bill) even though he stated in a letter he was "strongly opposed to the practice of dueling" and his son had already been killed in one. The social approval of that form of killing was intense at the time – after all, the man on the $20 bill (Andrew Jackson) fought in several, killed a man in one, and was still elected president.
Our Latest Blog Post
Linking all our issues is the idea that those committing violence are traumatized by doing so. One symptom is irritable behavior and unprovoked angry outbursts; another is feeling detached or estranged from others. Rachel MacNair relates cases where The Traumatized Lash Out at abortion facilities.
Quotation of the Week
Kathryn Jean Lopez
National Review, March 7, 2022
At a time when Russia is giving the world flashbacks to the Soviet menace, and as we hear widespread calls for peace — including from the head of the Democratic Party, President Biden — Democrats made their priority an election-minded vote on expanding abortion in America, seeking to ride roughshod over states that are better than that.
Don’t expect peace in the world until we do better than abortion. Forgive me for borrowing that from Mother Teresa, speaking in front of President Clinton . . . Until we stop dehumanizing the unborn child in the womb, expect more, not less violence in homes, in our country, and throughout the world.
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