The Strategic Value of the Consistent Life Ethic
Some thoughts from members of the Consistent Life Network Board of Directors
Helping the Pro-Life Movement
Richard Stith:
There are many anti-abortion groups out there that break political stereotypes. I’m thinking of Secular Pro-Life, Feminists for Life, Democrats for Life, the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, the Rainbow Pro-Life Alliance, and more. They are all doing great work and more power to them. It’s really important for people who consider themselves more or less on the Left to realize that they can also be against prenatal violence.
The Consistent Life Network is similar in that it, too, breaks stereotypes. By working against war, the death penalty, euthanasia, poverty, and racism, the Consistent Life Network gives peace people, anti-racism workers, community organizers, and others permission to come out against killing our littlest sisters and brothers. They don’t have to feel that by opposing abortion they have somehow turned against those other good causes.
Yet the Consistent Life Network is special. We see a deep, even metaphysical, commonality in all struggles against lethal violence, and we point toward a fundamental social transformation founded on the inviolability of human dignity.
The difference between us and those other great counter-stereotype groups comes down to two words: despite and because. Those other groups rightly point out that one can be against killing in the womb despite being secular or feminist or a Democrat or a gay rights ally, etc. Our Consistent Life Network, by contrast, seeks to stop the violence of abortion because we seek to stop all lethal violence. Stopping malevolent curettes is of a piece with stopping bombs, executions, and lynchings.
We and the other groups are all doing important advocacy against abortion. But we offer more than political outreach. As our postmodern society becomes more and more confusing and meaningless, people are searching for the kind of simple yet transformative grounding that the Consistent Life Network and other consistent-life groups present: non-violence across the board, founded on human dignity across the board.
Helping the Peace Movement
Rachel MacNair:
In addition to the obvious point that pro-lifers are more likely to listen to dialog about peace and justice issues when done by fellow pro-lifers, there’s the most basic point. It’s the one that’s been motivating me the most:
If the peace movement can’t act according to its own principles, it’s doomed.
See, for example, my post: An Example of Why the Peace Movement is in Deep Trouble.
And a multi-author post dealing with a peace group having a pro-abortion project: Another Blind Spot: Win Without War.
But this is beyond merely taking an inconsistent stand on abortion by using euphemisms for it and being oblivious to its violence. There are too many times when consistent-lifers have been shut out of having tables, being co-sponsors of good initiatives, or otherwise face the kind of hostility that anyone who pays attention to diversity, listening, dialog, and other peace practices should be embarrassed to notice that they’re doing
As a Quaker, I’ve had fellow Quakers actually yell at me on the topic. I’ve had my lit table at a Quaker conference sabotaged – the staff knew about it and one told me later they disapproved. But did nothing about it at the time.
I went to a conference of the national Quaker lobbying group in 2023 and spoke out against them moving to a post-Dobbs pro-abortion stand. Several people in the halls told me I was brave. Brave? Really? A Quaker standing up and telling a group of Quakers what she thinks? That shouldn’t require bravery. The fact that this came up several times should be flashing red alarm bells for groupthink. And belligerency induced by cognitive dissonance.
They’ve also weakened their ability to make the case for nonviolent policy to Republican office-holders who are aware that their pacifist stand against killing has one glaring exception.
So, in addition to my pro-life activism being for the sake of the pro-life cause, it’s also for the sake of the cause of peace. Peace goals can’t be achieved as long as their advocates don’t follow their own principles.
Multi-Issue Strategy
Rachel MacNair:
A major advantage for a single-issue approach is that it gives the biggest tent and draws the greatest number of people. Back in the day, when we were at National Right to Life exhibits, there would be one for Feminists for Life and another for Eagle Forum; one for Pro-lifers for Survival and another for Young Americans for Freedom. We all got along at that location because we shared the single issue.
So why do we at CLN go multi-issue? The truth that issues are connected by itself isn’t enough to explain it as a strategy, as opposed to simply taking the issues separately and then perhaps pointing out connections.
Reasons we do this:
- Peace movement people think this way. We think about connected issues all the time, and so when we speak this way, we’re talking a language that others in the peace movement understand.
- It breaks stereotypes.
- Consistency has power. It avoids inconsistency, which weakens the case on all issues. The persuasive power can be strengthened in some circles, especially where inconsistency is disdained.
- It offers insights we can’t get otherwise, as shown by all the insights we offer.
- People in the peace movement are more willing to listen to the pro-life case from fellow peace movement people, and people in the pro-life movement are more willing to listen to the case against war and the death penalty from fellow pro-lifers.
Single Issue – Multiple Facets
Bill Samuel:
Another way to look at our approach is not as a multi-issue approach but as a single issue with multiple facets. The CLN Mission Statement is written from that perspective. Its first sentence is “We are a network of organizations and individuals committed to the protection of life, which is threatened in today’s world by war, abortion, poverty, racism, the death penalty and euthanasia.” It identifies one issue, the protection of life, and then identifies threats to that value. As time went on, we increased the number of threats from those we initially listed, while recognizing we were not identifying all the threats to the protection of life, but rather stating which ones we are making priorities for our work.
Why protect all life? Because each human being has inherent worth and dignity that society should respect. That understanding underlies everything we do.
It’s consistent because it has that common root, that common ethic. It makes sense as a single unified concept, which is a reason why we can sometimes get a respectful hearing on an aspect on which another has had a different view when they may not listen with an open mind to someone on a particular component of it who doesn’t embrace the ethic as a whole.
============================
Leave a Reply