#638 - Peace & Life: Messed-up Wording Problems in Referendums- November 18, 2022
Importance of Giving Thought to Wording
For those who wonder how Montana voters could be so heartless as to vote down a measure to give medical care to infants born alive, including those surviving an abortion attempt, Wesley J Smith explains: The first paragraph would have established a newborn as a person worth protecting, but the second paragraph added a requirement that all life-saving medical care must happen. That means a baby who’s going to die soon even with that care must be subjected to it, rather than being comforted in mom’s arms. That scenario is indeed heartless, and that second paragraph may have caused the loss.
Problems in poor wording also plagued the Louisiana referendum to remove from the abolition of slavery the exception for those convicted of a crime. The legislative sponsor actually urged voters to reject it, saying the ballot language and the measure itself had confusing wording. So the state’s Legislative Black Caucus and House Democrats came out against it. They intend to fix it and come back next year, but in the mean time, Louisiana left itself open for people misunderstanding that they didn’t actually want slavery entirely abolished.
Statement of Solidarity with Russian War Opponents
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Donate to Consistent Life this #GivingTuesday!
All of you who advocate for human life at every stage can further this vital work by supporting the Consistent Life Network on #GivingTuesday, November 29. Donations help us to attend events and spread the word through leafletting and tabling, maintain websites that provide resources for activism - Peace and Life Referendums and Grassroots Defunding, provide educational resources for youth in CL Kids!, pay contributors to our blog, keep our Facebook and Twitter and main website at good quality, compensate interns, support other activists through our Action Foundation, and more. You can donate through our website.
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Events
March for Life: The national March for Life in Washington D.C. January 20 will make an obvious change in the route: instead of going by the Supreme Court, it will go by Congress. We’re making our plans to be there as normal: a presence at the marches and tabling at associated conferences. Member group Rehumanize International is, as usual, planning a rally right before the March.
The West Coast March for Life will be on January 21 in San Francisco.
The major Midwestern march is moving from Chicago to Springfield and from January to March 21. A focus on Illinois legislation now impacts the entire Midwest.
Here’s a listing for local state and city marches.
Our Latest Blog Post
John Whitehead offers The Need for Peacemakers: Two Urgent Dangers That Require a Response
Quotation of the Week
Daniel Berrigan
interview by Lucien Miller, Reflections (Amherst, Mass., Fall 1979)
It is a hell of a way to spend one's life, as I do, objecting to the killing of people. It is like being in the Stone Age, pre-human. You would like to be building human community with certain common presuppositions, and you can't. You can't. It is like living in a cave, sitting around the fire arguing whether we should go out and club people and eat them. As if this were a serious choice.