#622 - Peace & Life: CL Kids/Nukes/Asserting Incompetence - July 29, 2022
CL Kids plans to have another Zoom meeting September 7th to share stories and welcome new members. If you have any connections to any educators that you think would be interested, we ask you to put in their contact info into this Google Form so we can contact them, or forward the link to them to fill out for themselves.
Anniversaries: Nuclear Blasts for Targeted Killing
There should be local commemorations all around the world to observe the upcoming anniversaries of the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, and of Nagasaki on August 9. We encourage you to attend any nearby you.
While there have been many killed as a side effect of nuclear testing and uranium mining, Nagasaki was the last blast intended to kill people. May it ever remain the last.
Asserting Incompetence
Here’s another example of how bad abortion has been for women: media are reporting cases of doctors afraid to properly treat miscarriages because of state abortion bans.
Pro-choice doctors have become so accustomed to using the euphemism of “the procedure” for abortion, and so practiced in ignoring how it kills babies, that when killing babies is made illegal, they get confused. If there’s a miscarriage and the baby is already dead, then of course the corpse needs to be removed immediately. When this uses the same medical procedure as abortion, that’s beside the point. It’s not the medical procedure itself that’s objectionable. It’s using it to kill.
If doctors refrain from proper miscarriage management and are sued for malpractice, they’ll need to settle quickly, because they will indeed be guilty of malpractice. Referring to the state’s abortion law won’t help their case .
Pro-life doctors have long practice in making this clear distinction. They have the added advantage of being sensitive to the mother’s emotions about the unavoidable loss of the baby (see this positive New York Times article – or a negative case in our blog).
SASI Conference
CLN board member Lisa Stiller attended the Social Action Summer Institute (SASI), a yearly social justice conference put on by Roundtable, the Association of Catholic Diocesan Social Action Directors. After a two-year hiatus due to Covid, the conference was held in Collegeville, MN. There was good interest in our table as usual. A talk on Catholic Social Teaching, which holds to the Consistent Life Ethic, was extremely inspiring, as was a short documentary on poverty in Appalachia.
Correction on Referendums: Last week we said South Dakota had a minimum wage referendum - actually, it's Nebraska that probably will have that, once signatures are verified. South Dakota's referendum is on Medicaid Expansion. It was always correct on our Peace & Life Referendums website.
Our Latest Blog Post
Jim Hewes reflects on how much good could come if we take Abortion: A Restorative Justice Response.
Quotation of the Week
Karen Swallow Prior
A Conservative Takes a Second Look at the Morality of Nuclear Weapons
Sojourners, August 2015
I was sitting in the wrong end of a police wagon the first time I questioned nuclear weapons . . . We had been protesting abortion. I was thinking about nuclear weapons because a couple of those in the bus were peace activists who had long rap sheets from years of anti-war protests. I, on the other hand, was a Republican-voting, independent Baptist church-attending, conservative-leaning, law-abiding (well, until now) kind of Christian. I was awed—and grateful—that these peaceniks would join the likes of me in common cause against another kind of violence.
My new friends adhered to the “seamless garment” philosophy.