#628 - Peace & Life: Referendums All Set - September 9, 2022
Referendums for November
Now that we’re past Labor Day and start the traditional U.S. campaign season for election day November 8, here’s the final list of referendums we’re tracking for this year.
There have been no U.S. referendums on the death penalty or euthanasia/assisted suicide since 2016. War is rarely covered; there have been several measures on racist Civil War memorials in the past but none were found for this election.
Abortion:
No Right to Abortion in state constitution: Kentucky
Establish Right to Abortion in state constitution:
Medical care required after live births from abortion: Montana
Poverty:
Medicaid Expansion: South Dakota
Minimum Wage: California, Nebraska, Nevada
Racism:
Removing the exception for abolishing slavery for people convicted of a crime:
Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont
Removing racist provisions from state constitution (as part of an over-all package of a recompiled state constitution): Alabama
All of these have come from perusing Ballotpedia, which keeps good track of U.S. state referenda, but doesn’t do more local ones. If you know of a city, town, or county with a referendum we should be tracking, please send it to CLNeditors@googlegroups.com.
Referendums outside the U.S. would also be of particular interest.
More Evidence on the Reality of the Death Penalty
The Atlantic has an article about horrific events surrounding the most recent execution in Alabama in What Happened to Joe Nathan James?
So Much for “Women’s Equality” – Business is Business
Several companies have proclaimed that they are so very much for the rights of their female employees that they will cover travel expenses for women to travel to another state to get an abortion. See, for example, this Washington Post article about Disney.
They simply don’t point out that this is cheaper than parental leave – and that some of them (like Disney) are cutting back on parental leave, as detailed in this Wall Street Journal report.
Events
Anyone interested in commemorating the tragedy of 9/11 with a focus on peace is welcome to attend the following online vigil hosted by the Pax Christi community in Bangor, Maine, a chapter of our member group, Pax Christi USA. The virtual event is 7 PM U.S. Eastern Time.
The Latest Blog Post
The last nuclear test conducted by the United States was in September, 1992, so this month is the 30th anniversary. John Whitehead reflects on the damage caused in Fallout at Home Base: Nuclear Testing within the United States.
Quotation of the Week
Juli Loesch (now Julianne Wiley)
founder of our predecessor group, Prolifers for Survival
Remarks at National Right to Life Convention, June 18, 1981.
I started into this kind of agitation thinking I was going to be a bridge-builder – you know, a bridge-builder between peace and pro-life, a bridge-builder between feminism and pro-life. And what I experienced in the first few years of this [was] sometimes attracting bricks from both the right and the left coming at me simultaneously. And where those bricks came from was from the rift in the wall – from people's own consciences tearing in two . . . And it pleases me now to see that instead of being a bridge-builder, I started off being a wall-breaker. You take all those loose bricks, and that's what you make the bridge out of.