#659 - Peace & Life: Geminder RIP / AI in weapons? - April 28, 2023
Damian Jon Geminder, Rest in Peace
Whenever our member group Feminists for Life let us know they had more articles in their practical-tips Women Deserve Better website, it was Damian that sent us the links to share. He died on April 20.
FFL shares:
On March 1, the first day of Women’s History Month, Damian Geminder, a 33-year-old healthy young man—a nonsmoker with no history of cardiac issues—suffered a massive heart attack . . .
Brilliant, hilarious, and kind, he was raised in a home first owned by a suffragist. He was introduced as a teen to Feminists for Life by his big sister, Jessica, who shared copies of our magazine. Since college, he was dedicated to serving those at greatest risk of abortion, first as one of our interns, then as a volunteer. After achieving his master’s in journalism, Damian became our editor on February 15, 2016, Susan B. Anthony’s birthday.
For the last decade, he devoted his life to making the lives of women and children better. Damian would tell you if he could that shepherding 300 articles on our WomenDeserveBetter.com helpsite was one of his biggest accomplishments.
Louisiana Governor: Pro-life Goes with Abolishing the Death Penalty
In his final State of the State Address to the Louisiana legislature, pro-life Democrat Governor John Bel Edwards urged legislators to abolish the death penalty, saying: “Our criminal justice system is far from perfect. It is wholly inconsistent with Louisiana’s pro-life values, as it quite literally promotes death.”
The state’s last execution was in 2010, so making it official to not do them anymore wouldn’t be a huge change. There are plenty of legislators who don’t buy the argument, but the more boldly prominent people make the point, the better.
As if Mindlessness Weren’t Enough of a Problem Already
Artificial intelligence has its promises and perils, but one peril being considered is putting it in charge of military weapons systems (see info and a petition against it here). The consequences there could be widespread damage (if not world-ending).
But applying the technology to executions, abortions, and euthanasia could increase those practices by eliminating one of the defenses against those: people who have to do them. While many have been found that will, many that won’t have an influence on making them happen less frequently. Letting machines figure it out based on cold-hearted algorithms would likely increase the violence.
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Leslie Keech (1955-1989) was a witty writer, active with Feminists for Life among many other pro-life groups. We reprint from FFL’s then newsletter Sisterlife her piece, Better Living (for men) Through Surgery (for women).
Quotation of the Week
Joseph Bernardin,
The Seamless Garment: Writings on the Consistent Ethic, p. 107
The logic of the consistent ethic is to press the moral meaning of both issues. The consequence of a consistent ethic is to bring under review the position of every group in the Church which sees the moral meaning in one place but not the other. The ethic cuts two ways, not one: it challenges pro-life groups and it challenges justice and peace groups. The meaning of a consistent ethic is to say in the Catholic community that our moral tradition calls us beyond the split so evident in the wider society between moral witness to life before and after birth.