#630 - Peace & Life: Referendum Videos, Immigrants, M*A*S*H - September 23, 2022
Referendums: New Videos Up
Specific to the upcoming U.S. election November 8, we offer videos with peace, human rights, and disability rights activists explaining how they encourage people to vote on that state’s constitutional amendments dealing with abortion.
Each set is done per state and can be found on that state’s page: For Kentucky, a yes vote is encouraged on a No Right to Abortion amendment. A no vote is encouraged in three states where the vote is to establish a right to abortion in the state constitution: California, Michigan, and Vermont.
These are intended to be spread on social media. So even if you don’t live in any of those four states, if you know anyone or any group who does, then you might find any or all of these useful to share.
When Immigration Policy is Lethal
The incident last week in which immigrants who arrived over the U.S. southern border were flown to Martha’s Vineyard, even if reports are true that they were deceived, was less traumatizing than the child separation policy of 2018 – but then, very little is as traumatizing as that policy was without involving death. Unfortunately, U.S. immigration policy also involves death. We pointed this out back in 2010 in The Death Penalty for a Class B Misdemeanor.
Here’s an official chart of the number of deaths over the last few years:
The possibility that racism is a factor in the policies that led to these deaths can be shown by observing that no similar chart was found for the northern U.S. border with Canada.
Creating a Pro-life Culture
CLN Endorser Destiny Herndon-de la Rosa (pictured), founder of member group New Wave Feminists, has an article mentioning the consistent life ethic in America magazine. It’s entitled “Our post-Roe world makes it clear: Laws will never be enough to create a pro-life culture.”
Laws banning abortion, which she favors but doesn’t focus on, can only go so far. Public policy, private helping hands, and emotional support are needed to address the connection of poverty to abortion.
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The consistent-life approach, though not yet called that, was actually tried in two of the three pre-Roe referendums to legalize abortion statewide, and in those two, the initiatives were soundly defeated. Rachel MacNair covers this in What History Shows: The Consistent Life Ethic Works Well for the Pro-life Side in Referendums.
This is also up as a topic page on our website, Peace and Life Referendums.
Quotation of the Week
M*A*S*H - television show set in the early-1950s Korean war at a mobile army hospital Episode: “The Incubator,” airdate October 19. 1973 September 17 was the 50th anniversary of the start of this 11-year anti-war series. It made enough of an impact that several news sources noted the occasion. In honor of the anniversary, we repeat a quotation we published in issue #480. All characters are doctors, and the incubator was a necessary piece of medical equipment the army wouldn’t send them, leaving them in a scramble to find one themselves. Trapper: Guess where we’re going after surgery, Henry? Henry: Oh? Without my permission? Hawkeye: Don’t we have it? Henry: Of course, you do. You think I’d let you leave without my permission? Hawkeye (happily): An incubator. Trapper: Three! Henry: May I remind you both that not everybody you’ll meet down there is going to be lovable Colonel Henry Blake. Hawkeye: What are you trying to tell us, lovable Colonel Blake? Henry: Just – Take my advice. Don’t show up looking like a couple of free-lance abortionists. Shape up.