#636 - Peace & Life: Election Issue - November 4, 2022
Special Issue: Upcoming Elections
Candidates
Figuring out how to vote for candidates is unpleasant for consistent-lifers, inasmuch as it’s rare to find a consistent-life candidate. When you do, it’s generally for lower office. Here are our blog posts that reflect on this conundrum:
Elections 2020: Three Consistent-Life Approaches
Pro-life Voting Strategy: A Problem without an Answer
My Difficulty in Voting: Identifying the Problem
How Consistent-life Advocacy Would Benefit from Ranked-Choice Voting
Referendums
See our website for all the ones we’re tracking:
Plans are for that website to have all the results posted by mid-day on November 9.
Here are the major themes to watch out for this year – some may get national coverage.
State Constitutions and Abortion
In Kansas, an amendment to say there was no right to an abortion in the state constitution, intended to overturn a Kansas Supreme Court ruling, was defeated in a landslide last August. This received much coverage; Kansas is considered a “red” state. However, Kansas had legalized abortion before Roe v. Wade. And while the no-right-to-abortion amendments had a 100% winning record before this, and the polls showed the race would be close, the Dobbs decision made the difference. People who normally don’t vote, and were therefore not considered likely voters by pollsters, voted after all. Passions were high.
Kentucky will have a similar measure on the ballot, placed there by the legislature, and placed there long before the Dobbs decision.
Taking the opposite approach, the Dobbs decision inspired two state legislatures to put before voters a state constitutional amendment to establish a right to abortion: California and Vermont. Given the predilections of those states’ voters, those are likely to pass by large margins. If either one doesn’t pass, or does so only by a small margin, that will be noteworthy.
But in Michigan, considered a “purple” state (or swing state), petitioners put an extreme establish-right-to-abortion measure on the ballot. This is one to watch: if it goes as it did in Kansas, the movement for legislative bans or regulations on abortion will be severely hampered. If it’s defeated, that will help somewhat to undo the damage from Kansas.
Finally Abolishing All Slavery
When the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for abolishing slavery was passed, it had an exception for those convicted of a crime. Several state constitutions followed suit. There’s been a movement among states to undo that. This year, voting for removing the exception: Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, and Tennessee. Also, Vermont is voting on removing debt as a reason for indentured servitude.
Poverty
Medicaid Expansion is being voted on in South Dakota, and a raise in the minimum wage in Michigan, Nebraska, and Nevada.
Events
Join Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore, a CLN member group, online for their 15th Annual Peacemaker of the Year celebration, honoring John Whitehead. John has served as our secretary and later as president and is currently still active with us in other roles.
The event is at 7 PM Eastern Time on Saturday, November 5.
Our Latest Blog Post
In What Just Happened!?! Becoming Consistent Life Despite Myself, Thad Crouch shares part 1 of his personal journey toward the consistent life ethic, focused on the death penalty. As a veteran who had supported especially brutal forms of the death penalty before, he has a dramatic conversion story.
Quotation of the Week
Katrina Jackson, Louisiana State Senator
Dr. Phil Show 2022 Season 21 Episode 33, Right to Life, Right to Choose: The Conversation
Let me tell you what’s most offensive to me, Dr. Phil, is when I hear people say that for Black and brown women the remedy to them living in poverty is abortion. Then to me, we perpetuate the racism that we’ve faced for years, and we perpetuate it in that we say, “Don’t solve the problem. Don’t offer women equal pay. Don’t offer women access to health care. Don’t offer women fair and equitable jobs that they deserve. Instead, offer them abortions and let them stay in poverty.”