Not Your Pawns: A CLE Examination of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Sonja Morin
by Sonja Morin
“But if you remember nothing else, please remember this: Chess is just a game. Real people aren’t pieces, and you can’t assign more value to some of them than to others. Not to me, not to anyone. People are not a thing that you can sacrifice. The lesson is that anyone who looks on the world as if it was a game of chess deserves to lose.” (Harold Finch, from the TV series Person of Interest)
This quote came to mind as I reexamined the recent news of Russia’s building military pressure on Ukraine. It was especially striking when I read the following from Alexander Lukashevich, Russia’s representative: “Russia is a peace-loving country. But we do not need peace at any cost. The need to obtain these legally formalized security guarantees for us is unconditional.” Even the most brief study into what led us into this position makes it clear that the cause is the use of human lives as mere pawns to forward violent and power-hungry plans. It should be cause for us to demand our international leaders adhere to principles that will recognize those caught up in the threats as humans, not objects for use.
Russia has continued to escalate its military presence against Ukraine. Not only have they positioned troops and weaponry on the Russia-Ukraine border, but they most recently conducted military exercises with short-range ballistic missile crews within the western part of Russia. The Putin-led government has been working to keep former Soviet satellite states from joining NATO (an international partnership formed to counteract Soviet actions during the Cold War). In other words, Russia is attempting to retaliate to prevent Ukraine from allying itself with countries such as the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and other Western powers who have had difficult relations with Russia in the past.
These fraught alliances were created out of war. The Soviet Union assumed rule in countries that were left devastated after World War II, especially those that had been taken over previously by the Nazi Third Reich. NATO was created in reaction to this multi-country conglomerate. Decades dragged on as the United States and the Soviet Union waited for the other to strike. And what finally led this Cold War to its end? Military spending: the two international giants tried outspending each other in weapons development until the Soviet economy finally collapsed.
Now we are in the same conflict as we were in during past decades. War has only begotten more war.
In all these conflicts, there was no prioritization of the people whose lives would effectively turn into pawns of the state. At best, the people on the ground were an afterthought for those in power—and it took considerable efforts by antiwar activists to make the powerful pay even that much attention. While the pro-war arguments have been presented as being in the best interests of security and peace, they have accomplished neither. Human lives continue to be used as pawns to provoke military action.
If we are to undo this cycle of fear-mongering chaos, we must not resort to the violence that started it in the first place. The first priority must be the protection of all those who are currently living in Ukraine. Countries and non-affiliated organizations should seek out solutions that will prioritize the safety of those who are in danger. We have the insight, knowledge, and technology to accomplish it; all that is missing is the resolve among leaders to do so. They must be reminded of their duty to stand up for the defenseless, and come to the aid of those in need.
The second priority must be peaceful negotiations through appropriate channels. It’s clear that the militarization of the US-Russia tensions has accomplished absolutely nothing for either country. The threats are not only unproductive but dehumanizing to the people who would be most affected by war. Countries must work together – be it between their staff, or through alliances such as the United Nations – to stop the escalating military action. Ukraine must be recognized as its own nation, and must be free from the fear of attack. We’ve already lived through one fruitless century of weapons against weapons, poised to strike at a moment’s notice. At all costs, we must avoid another one.
The roots and results of this conflict are drenched in violence. We must thoroughly wash ourselves of the dehumanization that led us here, and move forward in a way that protects and promotes peace for all people.
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See more of our posts on war policy:
Making the Case for Peace to Conservatives
Would Nonviolence Work on the Nazis?
The Darkest Hour: “Glorifying” War?
The Civil War Conundrum, 150 Years Later
Seeing War’s Victims: The New York Times Investigation of Civilian Casualties in Iraq and Syria
January 22, Day of Horror & Hope: Reflections 2022
Rachel MacNair
Rachel MacNair
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) bans the use, possession, testing, and transfer of nuclear weapons under international law.
I had been following its progress for some time, of course. I would get word this nation had ratified and that one had and we were getting close to the 50 we needed to go into effect. Finally, the 50th finished the ratification paperwork on October 24, 2020. According to law, it would go into effect 90 days from then. In 2021, they reported, that fell on January 22.
I burst out laughing. That date is very familiar, of course.
So the anniversary of the outrageous Roe v. Wade decision and the anniversary of nuclear weapons becoming unambiguously illegal under international law are a double anniversary. That we would need to make a Day of it was obvious. On the first Day of Horror and Hope (before we named it that), we held a webinar.
Putting these two issues together goes way back into our history. The Consistent Life Network was founded at the final meeting of Prolifers for Survival – our roots began with these two issues. As PS founder Juli Loesch (now Julianne Wiley) put it, “To me nuclear weapons and abortion were perfect bookends, symmetrical images of each other. They both involved a frank commitment to targeting innocent targets, and they both depended on the calculated willingness to destroy them deliberately.”
John Whitehead
John Whitehead
When I think about how the struggles against abortion and nuclear weapons are linked—beyond their common commitment to stopping mass killing—two specific parallels come to mind.
Local Differences
First, both struggles are broad in scope and may become still broader in the future. Pro-life activists, in their efforts against abortion, must consider the circumstances, laws, and policies in each nation or jurisdiction where they work. Peace activists, in their efforts against nuclear weapons, must consider the circumstances of each nation that possesses such weapons and which of the world’s many conflicts could potentially flare up into nuclear war.
In the United States, if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade, then abortion law will no longer be governed by a single legal framework. States will be free to determine their own laws, if any, regulating abortion. This change will make pro-life activism still more diffuse. Activists will face different challenges and will need to adopt different approaches depending on the state.
On a global scale, the struggle against nuclear weapons could also become more diffuse. If the US-China rivalry continues to intensify and China expands its nuclear arsenal, then this conflict will require more of peace activists’ attention. Further (although we must work to prevent this), if new nations, such as Iran, acquire nuclear weapons, then those nations will also require activists’ time and attention. Both pro-life and peace activists face diverse challenges that may become even more diverse as time goes on.
Outside Politics
Second, while the political and legal approach to defending life is very important, pro-life and peace activists alike have similar opportunities to make progress outside the usual political channels. The Supreme Court might not overturn Roe v Wade, and even if it does many states might not change their abortion laws. The current nuclear-armed nations are unlikely to ratify the UN Treaty banning nuclear weapons anytime soon. Nevertheless, pro-life and peace activists can and should continue to educate on the violence of abortion and nuclear weapons and to make both types of violence unacceptable.
As I wrote when the nuclear ban treaty first entered into law,
an international treaty banning nuclear weapons creates a stigma against such weapons. Nations that fail to join the treaty have a similar questionable status to those that refuse to join treaties prohibiting landmines or chemical and biological weapons. As more nations join the treaty (even if those nations don’t possess nuclear weapons), the strength of global opinion that holds nuclear weapons to be morally suspect will grow.
Pro-life activists have long pursued a similar goal of exposing abortion’s lethal toll on children. This educational and persuasive work by both groups remains vital.
Further, both pro-life and peace activists can continue to promote alternatives to violence and to divert funds away from killing. Pro-life activists do so through the network of crisis pregnancy centers and the Grassroots Defunding campaign, which create alternatives to institutions that perform abortions and thus take money away from them. Peace activists do so through initiatives such as Don’t Bank on the Bomb, getting financial institutions to withdraw investments from nuclear weapons manufacturers. Conventional politics isn’t the only option available to us.
Conclusion
Pro-life and peace activists both face a diffuse, complicated set of challenges, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon. They both also continue to have valuable opportunities to defend life from abortion and nuclear weapons.
Thad Crouch
Thad Crouch
Horror
In 1783, Benjamin Franklin responded to a question about the use of the newly invented flying balloons in warfare with a famous alleged quote, “What is the good of a newborn baby?” By 1784, Franklin proposed that the horror of destruction wrought by hot air balloon warfare held potential for “convincing sovereigns of the folly of wars.”
This January 22nd, the anniversary of both Roe and the day nuclear weapons became internationally illegal, we ponder the horrific use of technological advances in light of valuing the good of humans life and we seek for abolition.
One amazing sign of hope arising from WW I’s horrible death tolls are two accomplishments of the global peace movement: First, an international day to remember the horror and end war. Second, with one decade, the U.S. was among the first of 62 nations signing an International treaty abolishing war.
How have the twin horrors of 129,000 to 226,000 humans killed by merely two antiquated low-yield U.S. atomic bombs and U.S abortions ranging 1.5 million to 600,000 per year not resulted in in abolition after all these decades?
Propaganda
The modern connection between abortion and women’s rights began as plot by master propagandist. Larry Lader, who wrote the book Abortion in 1966 with half-truths and lies. His fellow NARAL founder, Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson, fabricated numbers of women’s deaths in back-alley abortions. Lader persuaded feminist author and NOW leader, Betty Friedan, into thinking abortion empowered women — rather than irresponsible men. Friedan pushed a last-minute abortion vote at a NOW convention vote which united the feminist and sexual revolution movements. Lader’s book was cited 8 times in the Roe decision, without fact-checking.
Pearl Harbor and quickly ending war are cited to justify nuking Japan. Yet the U.S. previously concluded Japan would have accepted surrender. FDR twice rejected peace talks with Japan and ordered the Navy to allow a Japanese attack as an excuse for premeditated war.
Polarizing
The 1920s U.S. peace movement broadly ranged from bankers to pacifists in four major political parties. Mid-20th century advances in propaganda and modern two-party polarization did not challenge their hopes as it does ours.
One would hope the shared horror of climate crisis and pandemic would rapidly reveal that humanity is tied in a mutual garment of destiny, yet the propaganda of our bi-polarizing two-party duopolistic paradigm is formidable. Shared horror may be necessary. Yet is insufficient for hope.
Hope is found beyond partisanship in value-based principles, such as the Consistent Life Ethic.
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For more on our January 22 March for Life actions, see:
Roe Anniversary Protests, 2019
For our coverage of the nuclear weapons treaty, see:
A Global Effort to Protect Life: The UN Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons
For more extensive coverage on both issues and their connections, push the “All Blog Posts” button at the top of the page.
Seeing War’s Victims: The New York Times Investigation of Civilian Casualties in Iraq and Syria
by John Whitehead
The New York Times recently published the results of an in-depth investigation into American bombing and its consequences. The Times articles, which came out in late December 2021, focused on the American bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria against ISIS. Drawing on internal Defense Department documents and extensive interviews, including with those affected by the bombings, the investigation concludes that “the air war has been marked by deeply flawed intelligence, rushed and often imprecise targeting.” While the US military officially claims that the air war against ISIS has killed 1,417 civilians, the Times’ findings point to higher numbers.
Records of Killing
The Defense Department documents analyzed by the Times were “credibility assessments”: a report on bombing incidents (apparently carried out mainly by missile-armed drones) in which civilians were allegedly harmed. Experts within the military assess the information on these incidents to determine if the reports are credible. Incidents are generally judged non-credible if the evidence is vague or insufficient or if no record exists of an airstrike at that time in that place.
The Times obtained, through Freedom of Information Act requests and lawsuits, 1,311 credibility assessments related to US bombing in Syria and Iraq between September 2014 and January 2018 (these documents are apparently only part of a much larger number of assessments). Of the assessments analyzed by the Times, only 216 deemed the reports of civilian harm “credible.”
While the credibility assessments alone don’t provide an adequate record of the air war’s toll, Times’ analysis of the 216 “credible” incidents contains notable findings. Civilians were killed and injured variously because they were misidentified as enemy fighters; they weren’t detected in the vicinity of the air strike; air strikes were based on flawed intelligence; surveillance video failed to capture crucial information about the area; civilians entered the vicinity of the strike at the last moment, after a weapon had been launched; or striking certain targets, such as weapons caches, caused additional explosions.
Some incidents suggest that US military personnel carrying out the air strikes was interpreting on-the-ground evidence to fit what they were looking for, with terrible consequences. US operatives searching for an ISIS bomb-making center in a Syrian village identified a walled compound that was the hub of suspicious traffic as the desired target. “White bags” within the compound were identified as materials for making explosives. The US military then bombed multiple buildings on November 20, 2016.
A subsequent military investigation showed no traces of the alleged explosive ingredients and concluded the compound had probably been a center for making cotton, not bombs. American officials said two civilians may have been killed; other reports said nine civilians had been killed.
In another incident, US forces operating in Mosul, Iraq, were looking for a dark-colored, heavily armored car allegedly armed with a bomb. This led to the United States bombing a dark colored car on February 25, 2017. However, far from being a car bomb, the vehicle carried a family. Also, the personnel carrying out the air strike made the truly strange choice to bomb the car at a busy intersection. The credibility assessment concluded five civilians had been killed or injured; an independent Times investigation in the area concluded seven people had been killed.
In some cases, the surveillance conducted prior to an air strike to determine the presence of civilians was very limited, sometimes consisting of only a few seconds of video footage. Lack of sufficient surveillance drones to survey areas was a problem.
Further, the Times investigation found US military procedures for investigating alleged civilian casualties, holding those responsible accountable, and learning lessons were lacking. The military unit that carried out an airstrike often ended up investigating the strike. Of the 1,311 credibility assessments, in only one assessment did investigators visit the strike’s site and in only two did they interview people present during the strike. Only a quarter of the documented cases reviewed by the Times included recommendations for further action. Fewer than a dozen condolence payments have been made to those affected by the bombing.
Death on the Ground
Given the inadequacies of the US military’s self-investigation, the Times carried out its own investigations of US airstrikes. Between late 2016 and June 2021, Times investigators visited, in Iraq and Syria, the sites of 60 incidents in which the US military deemed reports of civilian casualties credible and the site of 36 “non-credible” or as-yet-unassessed incidents.
Sources outside US military assessments unsurprisingly point to more civilian casualties than acknowledged by military sources. In many cases, the Times found civilian casualties to be almost double the military estimates. The Times reporting also found more children being killed or injured than in the military documents.
One dramatic incident was the bombing of the Syrian village of Tokhar. The US military bombed, on July 19, 2016, what they thought were ISIS forces located in an area without civilians. The bombing supposedly killed 85 ISIS fighters. A subsequent investigation, prompted by reports of civilian deaths, concluded that between 7 and 24 civilians “intermixed with the fighters” might have been killed.
When the Times interviewed Tokhar residents in 2018, their account of the incident was that large numbers of villagers had sought shelter from fighting between ISIS and anti-ISIS forces in four homes. Those homes were then bombed. No ISIS fighters were known to be in the area. From the interviews and other sources, the Times concluded that more than 120 people had been killed. The United States never made any condolence payments to those affected by the incident.
Precise numbers aside, every death in war is tragic and devastating to the loved ones of those killed. Ali Younes Muhammad Sultan lost his daughter, Sawsan, along with other members of his extended family in a 2016 US bombing in Mosul that killed 21 people. He described finding Sawsan’s remains in the aftermath of the air strike:
If it weren’t for her clothes, I wouldn’t have even known it was her…She was just pieces of meat. I recognized her only because she was wearing the purple dress that I bought for her a few days before. It’s indescribable. I can’t put it into words…We’re still in denial and disbelief. To this day, we cannot believe what happened. That day changed everything for us.
The victims of war all too often die and suffer unnoticed by the larger world. The Times investigation draws attention to their suffering and reminds us powerfully of war’s horrifying results.
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For similar posts from John Whitehead, see:
Lethal from the Start: Uranium Mining’s Danger to the Most Vulnerable
“The Affairs of a Handful of Natives”: Nuclear Testing and Racism
Nuclear Disarmament as a Social Justice Issue
A Global Effort to Protect Life: The UN Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons
The Wages of War, Part 1: How Abortion Came to Japan
Wages of War, Part 2: How Forced Sterilization Came to Japan
Wasting Money on Instruments of Death: Nuclear Weapons in the 2022 Budget
Scientific Integrity Problems – Psychology
The following letter (lightly edited) was sent in December, 2021.
Membership Department, American Psychological Association (APA)
Dear colleagues:
I have been a member since 1996, and have (for identification only) served as membership chair and 2013 president of Division 48, peace psychology.
I tolerated having occasional disagreements with APA organizational policy because this was my profession’s organization, and whenever one belongs to a specific community, it is better to stay and work through disagreements than to withdraw and have no more influence. For example, our whole division was discouraged over the APA’s role in “enhanced interrogation,” but over the years that eventually worked out in a more satisfactory manner (see pages 7-9 and later here). Having people who thought it important to stay rather than leave was important.
In the same way, I have been disturbed by the organization’s positions and activities about feticide. The Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion with its 2009 report never had a call for nominations, and its membership didn’t reflect the diversity of perspectives on the topic. I was a reviewer for the first draft of that report, and spent a good 30 to 40 hours going through it carefully for comment. The second version of the report did not receive similar review.
I thought its conclusion highly debatable, but it was never debated. No forum for proper scientific interchange with those of different perspectives was ever arranged.
The press release announcing the report was sent out the day before it was actually voted as accepted by the Council. Contrary to Psych 101, the vote to accept it was held by show of hands in front of everyone. I attended that Council meeting, and I perceived a political rally rather than a sober discussion.
Nevertheless, I stayed and made attempts to address my concerns. People of good will have differing opinions, and I am accustomed to dialog with people in a respectful manner.
Now, however, we go beyond the merely debatable. You have put out a press release that states something that is blatantly inaccurate: Texas abortion law likely to lead to worse mental health for women, says APA president
The statement of Jennifer F. Kelly, PhD. says:
Our position is based on scientific research showing that women who are denied abortions are more likely to experience higher levels of anxiety, lower life satisfaction and lower self-esteem compared with women who are able to obtain abortions . . . Research also suggests that adding barriers to accessing abortion services may increase symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression.
Here is the wording of the abstract of the APA Task Force report, the overview of studies:
Two issues were addressed: (a) the relative risks associated with abortion compared with the risks associated with its alternatives and (b) sources of variability in women’s responses following abortion . . . The most rigorous studies indicated that within the United States, the relative risk of mental health problems among adult women who have a single, legal, first-trimester abortion of an unwanted pregnancy is no greater than the risk among women who deliver an unwanted pregnancy. Evidence did not support the claim that observed associations between abortion and mental health problems are caused by abortion per se as opposed to other preexisting and co-occurring risk factors.
Observe: the issue of mental health problems from not getting an abortion was not addressed at all. Since it was clear that the authors would have liked to make that claim if they could, they clearly could not.
The conclusion was a lack of mental health problems from the abortion only, and then only for specified people (women who represent less than half of all abortions). The risk was “no greater” for abortion as opposed to giving birth. They did not find that it was less.
Subsequent to the report, there was a “Turnaway Study” done by an advocacy group, Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH). Three years after their abortions, two-thirds of the women approached declined to be interviewed; half of those remaining dropped out. Therefore, the sample is badly skewed toward those having fewer problems. The questions asked were shallow. The comparison group – those turned away – had the feature of being further along in their pregnancies than those who received abortions, so they were actually not a proper comparison group. This study is often cited, but I see that Dr. Kelly did not cite this one in the press release.
In any event, this is one study, and APA guidelines (Wilkinson, 1999) are clear that just one study does not a conclusion make. It is a mosaic of studies that lends itself to conclusions.
Dr. Kelly’s statement mentions only one study, apparently that of Herd, Higgins, Sicinski, & Merkurieva (2016). From the abstract:
Using the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, a 60-year ongoing survey, we examined associations between unwanted and mistimed pregnancies and mental health in later life . . . We found that in this cohort of mostly married and White women, who completed their pregnancies before the legalization of abortion, unwanted pregnancies were strongly associated with poorer mental health outcomes in later life.
What they found was that when mainly young married White women lived in a time when they could be trapped in undesired marriages amid assumption that career and children could not both be done simultaneously, then that did not work out well for them. It was a time period in which women who had suffered domestic abuse kept it quiet and had nowhere to go, so that having children meant they were all the more trapped, and exacerbated the problem. These features strike me as enough to account for the observed results.
This study says nothing whatsoever about women who live in current times under current conditions. In short, this is a study that never actually addresses the question of what happens when abortion is restricted.
Again, citing only one study does not a conclusion make. Yet there is quite a bit of literature that does directly address questions of what happens when specific abortion restrictions are put in place. Having written a book chapter on this (MacNair, 2016, pp. 240-255), if you check its reference list you can see what ought to go in the mosaic of studies (once studies since 2016 are added) before a proper conclusion can be drawn.
Dr. Kelly implies that what she says is the consensus of researchers, or that the research as a whole lends itself to the conclusion she draws. It simply does not. Cherry-picking only those studies that support a desired conclusion is well established as being inimical to science. This also diminishes my confidence in how scientifically rigorous APA is on other matters with which I am less familiar.
When the Task Force was convening, I was approached by a post-abortive woman who runs an organization of such women who feel they were wronged by their abortions – the circumstances that compelled or persuaded them, and the traumatizing nature of the abortion itself. She said she could arrange to have the Task Force sent thousands of testimonies. I explained to her carefully that they were doing an overview of quantitative studies and a torrent of one-sided personal stories would not be helpful. She understood, and the Task Force was spared a barrage of heartfelt stories.
But those women are still stinging that their voices were never heard. No one representing their understanding was ever allowed a voice. The recent APA press release is stunningly insensitive to them.
The American Psychological Association is an organization which has broken the rules of proper scientific inquiry. APA is also portraying the features I cite in my work on peace psychology as supporting violence, including dehumanization (the unborn child is never even so much as mentioned), oversimplification, euphemisms, pressures for conformity, and a glaring in-group/out-group dynamic in which I am clearly in the out-group.
My attempts to call for more discussion and debate have gotten nowhere, and I have been trying for many years (see for example pages 3-4). As long as this intolerable situation remains, I am afraid I can no longer be a part of this.
Rachel MacNair
References
(in APA Style)
American Psychological Association (2021, September 3) Texas abortion law likely to lead to worse mental health for women, says APA president. Retrieved from Texas abortion law likely to lead to worse mental health for women, says APA president
Herd, P., Higgins, J., Sicinski, K., & Merkurieva, I. (2016). The implications of unintended pregnancies for mental health in later life. American Journal of Public Health , 106(3), 421-429.
MacNair, R. M. (2016). Peace psychology perspectives on abortion. Kansas City, MO: Feminism & Nonviolence Studies Association.
Major, B., Appelbaum, M. Beckman, L., Dutton, M. A., Russo, N. F., & West., C. (2009). Abortion and mental health: Evaluating the evidence. American Psychologist, 64(9), 863-890.
Wilkinson, L. & Task Force on Statistical Inference, APA Board of Scientific Affairs (1999). Statistical methods in psychology journals: Guidelines and expectations. American Psychologist. Retrieved from https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1999-03403-008
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Update: While the APA membership department only gave a sorry-you-feel-that-way response, APA’s press office did respond with a substantive note with helpful content. Rachel is drafting a response to them, and we’ll post any further updates here.
For a post Rachel wrote previous on the American Psychological Association, see:
Violence Bolstered by Professional Contradictions
For excerpts from the book Peace Psychology Perspectives on Abortion that we’ve published as posts, see:
Excerpt – Peace Psychology Perspectives on Abortion
Excerpt – Peace Psychology Perspectives on Abortion: War Causes Abortion
Excerpt – Peace Psychology Perspectives on Abortion: Prevention of Child Abuse
December 28: Day of the Massacre of the Innocents
Happy Holidays!
For the source on the Massacre of the Holy Innocents, see the Biblical book of Matthew, chapter 2. This echoes Exodus 1:16.
Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Enuma Okoro
Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, pp. 80-81
(reading for) December 28
After Jesus was born, Matthew’s gospel records that King Herod was so disturbed by the news of a potential contender for the throne that he ordered a preemptive strike, executing all boys in Bethlehem under two years of age. Since its earliest centuries, the church has remembered these “holy innocents” who died because Jesus’ coming posed a threat to those in power. Today we remember all the little ones, born and unborn, who are sacrificed in a culture of death that has not yet welcomed the good news of Jesus. And we recall that Herod’s kingdom is now long gone, but the kingdom of God goes on.
Pope Francis
Letter of His Holiness Pope Francis to Bishops on the Feast of the Holy Innocents
December 28, 2016
Christmas is also accompanied, whether we like it or not, by tears. The Evangelists did not disguise reality to make it more credible or attractive . . . For them, Christmas was not a flight to fantasy, a way of hiding from the challenges and injustices of their day. On the contrary they relate the birth of the Son of God as an event fraught with tragedy and grief . . .
We are asked to protect this joy from the Herods of our own time . . . who devour the innocence of our children. An innocence robbed from them by the oppression of illegal slave labour, prostitution and exploitation. An innocence shattered by wars and forced immigration, with the great loss that this entails. Thousands of our children have fallen into the hands of gangs, criminal organizations and merchants of death, who only devour and exploit their neediness. . . .
Christian joy does not arise on the fringes of reality, by ignoring it or acting as if it did not exist. Christian joy is born from a call . . . to embrace and protect human life, especially that of the holy innocents of our own day. Christmas is a time that challenges us to protect life, to help it be born and grow.
Massacre of the Innocents (1565)
Artist: Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525-69)
Kathy Kelly
World Beyond War, January 22, 2021
About Suffering: A Massacre of the Innocents in Yemen
Depicting multiple episodes of gruesome brutality, Bruegel conveys the terror and grief inflicted on trapped villagers who cannot protect their children. Uncomfortable with the images of child slaughter, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II, after acquiring the painting, ordered another reworking. The slaughtered babies were painted over with images such as bundles of food or small animals, making the scene appear to be one of plunder rather than massacre.
Were Bruegel’s anti-war theme updated to convey images of child slaughter today, a remote Yemeni village could be the focus. Soldiers performing the slaughter wouldn’t arrive on horseback. Today, they often are Saudi pilots trained to fly U.S.-made warplanes over civilian locales and then launch laser-guided missiles (sold by Raytheon, Boeing and Lockheed Martin), to disembowel, decapitate, maim, or kill anyone in the path of the blast and exploding shards.
Note: Unfortunately, Kathy Kelly is not a consistent-lifer – but her comment on the famous painting is spot on.
The Christmas Visit. Postcard, c.1910
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This is a list of holiday editions of our weekly e-newsletter, Peace & Life Connections.
In 2010, we showed “It’s a Wonderful Movement” by using the theme of what would happen if the peace movement and the pro-life movement hadn’t arisen. We also had quotes from Scrooge (against respect for life) and a Martin Luther King Christmas sermon.
In 2011, we covered the materialism-reducing “Advent Conspiracy” and offered two pieces of children’s art: a 1938 anti-war cartoon called “Peace on Earth,” and the anti-war origins of “Horton Hears a Who,” whose tagline – “a person’s a person, no matter how small” – is irresistible to pro-lifers.
In 2012, we had a couple of quotes showing the pro-life aspects of two prominent Christmas tales: A Christmas Carol with Ebenezer Scrooge, and the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. We also quote from John Dear about Jesus as peacemaker and Rand Paul about the 1914 spontaneous Christmas Truce; he then related it to the culture of life.
In 2013, we shared several quotations reflecting on Christmas.
In 2014, we offered a quotation from a lesser-known Christmas novella of Charles Dickens and cited the treatment of abortion in the Zoroastrian scriptures.
In 2015, we had a list of good holiday movies with consistent-life themes – check it out for what you might want to see this season. We also had information on Muslim nonviolent perspectives.
In 2016, we discussed how “The Magi were Zoroastrians” and detailed how good the Zoroastrians were on consistent-life issues. The ancient roots of the consistent life ethic run deep!
In 2017, we covered Interfaith Peace in the Womb.
In 2018, we detailed Strong Women against Violence – Connected to the Holidays.
In 2019, we showed Christmas as a Nonviolent Alternative to Imperialism.
In 2020, given what was most on people’s minds at the time, we covered Pandemics Related to Christmas.
The Impact of Family Caps on Abortion
Author Sarah Terzo
by Sarah Terzo
Women sometimes choose abortion due to poverty. Therefore, the existence of social programs to help the poor have an impact on the abortion rate, according to numerous studies.
Researcher Laura Hussey asked the following question to women who had abortions:
Other countries provide a lot of assistance to women and their families that the government, employers, and schools in the US do not provide. These countries give women things like free childcare, free healthcare, money they can use to pay their family’s expenses, and the chance to take months or even years off of work with pay after giving birth.
Would you have made a different decision about your pregnancy if you could get that kind of help?1
Only 49% said they were sure they would still have had their abortions if such help had been available. Twenty-two percent said they would’ve had their babies, and 34% were unsure. The study shows that social programs to help the poor (or lack of them) have an impact on the abortion rate. But there is more evidence.
The Child Tax Credit and Abortion in England and Wales
The number of abortions in England and Wales rose 4% between 2017 and 2018. According to the abortion clinic chain British Pregnancy Advisory Service, part of the increase was caused by a new cap on child tax credits. It limited the child tax credit to two children.
Director Clare Murphy said that:
[C]ouples are making different decisions about the number of children they can afford and feel able to properly care for.
The two-child benefit cap was designed to influence reproductive decision-making and we are certainly aware of cases where that has been a factor in a woman’s decision to end a third, unplanned pregnancy.
One woman having an abortion at BPAS said, “If there was no two-child limit, I would have kept the baby, but I couldn’t afford to feed and clothe it … I’ve really struggled to come to terms with my decision.”
Another said:
The two-child cap forces people into a corner of knowing they can’t provide versus abortion. Although I understand it is not the government’s responsibility to be financially responsible for parents having children, I also felt that thanks to this rule I was forced to make this decision.
BPAS’s survey found that of women having abortions with two or more children, 57% said the tax credit policy influenced their decision.
Impact of Welfare Family Caps in America
In America, 22 states have instituted welfare family caps. In states without these caps, a woman on welfare who has a child receives more money. In states with them, this assistance is eliminated, usually after a certain number of children are born.
One poor mother said:
When we first had the twins, the only person in my family getting aid was my oldest son. We didn’t have money to buy them car seats to get home [from the hospital]. …We didn’t have money to pay for diapers, wipes, shampoos, and toiletries. …
I had to go to charities, wait in line, and hope that the charities had diapers that day. I am constantly trying to pay just enough to not have [the utilities] shut off.
It’s easy to see how some women abort to try to avoid this type of poverty.
Family caps in New Jersey
New Jersey instituted a family cap in 1990. They were the first state to do so. Abortions had been declining nationally since 1985 but after the family cap, this trend “reversed dramatically” in New Jersey according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute. Between 1992 and 1993 abortions among those affected by the family cap rose 10% and from that point began, “a steady trajectory upward… Reasonable individuals could posit a relationship between the implementation of a Family Cap and the rise in abortion.”2
One study found that “the Family Cap was indeed responsible for a decline in the birth rate among New Jersey’s welfare population and that this decline was facilitated by increased family planning and more abortions.”3
The study attributed 240 abortions a year, or 1100 total, to the family cap. Another study found that the abortion rate among those affected by the family cap was 14% higher than those unaffected.4
The burden of the cap fell primarily on Black women. The Boston Globe analyzed a study from Rutgers University that found:
Black women have been more affected by the law than other racial groups. Abortions among black women on welfare exceeded births from March 1993 … while the abortion rate for white and Hispanic women increased only slightly.5
In fact, later research found that for black women, there was a 21% decline in births and a 32% increase in abortions in the years after the family caps went into effect.6
According to researcher Michael J Camasso, “the experimental evidence indicates that the New Jersey Family Cap effect on both birth and abortion decisions is conditioned by a woman’s racial/ethnic status.”7 Drawing on studies, Camasso documented that the increase in abortions among Black women was directly related to the family caps.
Family Cap Supporters Admit They Increase Abortion
The people who instituted the family cap in New Jersey knew it would increase abortions. According to Wayne Bryant, sponsor of family cap legislation, “[Abortion] is a tough decision…but it’s a responsible decision for a family that believes it’s in their best interest.”8
In the Wall Street Journal, Charles Murray, who supports family caps, wrote:
It will lead many young women who shouldn’t be mothers to place their babies for adoption. This is good. It will lead others, watching what happens to their sisters, to take steps not to get pregnant. This is also good. Many others will get abortions. Whether this is good depends on what one thinks of abortion.9
William Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard, wrote, “We can’t not reform welfare because it might lead to a few more abortions.”10Supporters of family cap laws, then, freely acknowledge that these laws increase abortions. They don’t dispute this fact.
Opposition to Family Caps
No family should have to choose between abortion and abject poverty. As pro-life champion Representative Chris Smith says:
If you take away funding from the poorest of our children and pay for abortions on demand through Medicaid, like New Jersey and New York and many other states do, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that you’re either going to have poorer children or dead children.11
Some conservatives, despite their purported pro-life stand, have supported family caps, even knowing they increase abortions. The Heritage Foundation, which is ostensibly pro-life, has gone on record supporting them. To these groups, saving money (and possibly policing welfare mothers they consider irresponsible) is more important than preserving lives and preventing abortions.
But many pro-lifers, like Chris Smith, have opposed caps. There was a movement against the caps in New Jersey, and many pro-life individuals and organizations were part of it. It was originally a bipartisan effort, led by Assemblywomen Charlotte Vandervalk, a Republican, and Joan Quigley, a Democrat. The campaign made strange bedfellows. In addition to pro-lifers, rescinding family caps was supported by NOW, the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, Legal Services of New Jersey, and the American Civil Liberties Union.
A 2007 book documented these efforts.11 But the welfare child cap in New Jersey wasn’t repealed until September 30, 2020.
There are still welfare family caps in other states, and the pro-life movement isn’t as active in the fight against them as it should be. Although more recent research shows that the birth rate among those on welfare in states with family caps isn’t much higher than the birth rate of non-welfare mothers in these states, it’s likely these caps are still pressuring some women into abortions.
In one survey of women having abortions, 73% gave financial problems as a reason for the abortion. For over 20%, it was the primary reason. Poverty is a driver for abortion.
Footnotes:
- Laura Selena Hussey The Pro-Life Pregnancy Help Movement: Serving Women or Saving Babies?(Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2020) 207-208
- Michael J Camasso Family Caps, Abortion and Women of Color: Research Connection and Political Rejection (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) 28
- , 96
- , 105
- “Study Finds New Welfare Policy Boosted NJ’s Abortion Rate” Boston Globe June 18, 1998, p. 18
- Michael J Camasso Family Caps, 155
- Michelle Ruess “Abortions Rise as NJ Limits Welfare Payments” The Bergen Record May 17, 1995
- Charles Murray “The Coming White Underclass” The Wall Street Journal October 29, 1993, p. A14
- Tamar Lewin “Abortion Foes Worry about Welfare Cutoffs” New York Times March 19, 1995, p. 22
- Iver Peterson “Abortions up Slightly for Welfare Mothers” New York Times May 17, 1995
- Michael J Camasso Family Caps
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For more of Sarah Terzo’s posts on similar topics, see:
Social Programs to Help the Poor are Pro-life
How Euthanasia and Poverty Threaten the Disabled
How Ableism Led (and Leads) to Abortion
The Consistent Life Ethic and Traditional Tantra
(Not the Tantra That You May Have Heard Of)
by Acyutananda
Acyutananda
First let me say that I could be wrong in my beliefs. Like any member of any faith tradition who lives in a cosmopolitan environment, I meet people every day whose beliefs seem to flatly contradict my own, and who are not dumb. So how could I feel even somewhat confident that what I believe is true? Well, it seems to me that I, and other adherents of my path, have simply been lucky enough to have been exposed to valuable teachings and had valuable experiences that others may not have had. Moreover, I can see how the panoply of religious and spiritual beliefs that contradict each other could so easily have evolved from the attempts of the founders of different paths (including mine), with their own personalities, coming from very different cultures, to share their realizations about transcendent experiences that they had had basically in common. But I could be wrong.
The cosmology of my path stems from the inner vision of one man in modern times, but much of that inner vision matches ideas going back to the Upanishads, and even before that to the early Tantra that influenced the Upanishads. In terms of the “Six Orthodox Schools of Hindu Philosophy,” that cosmology has more resemblances to Samkhya, Yoga, and Vedanta than to the other three. The essence of the cosmology actually matches very well a statement once made by Max Planck, the founder of quantum physics: ‘I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness.'”
My beliefs, though they are beliefs and not proven facts, do not terribly disconcert scientific minds, because honest scientific minds, at least, admit to being mystified by consciousness. Adherents of my path believe that all is one because there is only one Consciousness. We think that Consciousness gets solidified for different periods of time into all the different phenomena of the universe, some of it into this thing, some into that thing. All phenomena, all things, of the universe eventually dissolve again into pure Consciousness, and we as human beings and as the most conscious beings are the things best poised to merge in that way. Moreover, our emergence from that Consciousness “designs” us to yearn for that merger, which we effect by remembering Consciousness at every moment of our lives. That infinite Consciousness is also infinite Bliss, beyond any suffering.
All this fairly describes the philosophy of Tantra, and yet Tantra is not essentially about philosophy – it is about techniques, techniques which promise practitioners the possibility of eventually seeing the truth for themselves, with no need for philosophy. Tantra is distinguished from other paths by certain aggressive techniques for confronting our own fears, our own lust, our own disgusts, and other psychological events that would drift our minds away from Consciousness when we meditate. Since it is about techniques, Tantra has been found congenial by many Hindus, many Buddhists, and many Jains, who did not entirely agree philosophically, as well as by people such as on my path, who identify only as Tantrics and do not call our path a religion, but simply a spiritual quest.
There developed, as an offshoot of traditional Tantra, a kind of Tantra focused on sexual stimulation and on redirecting that stimulation for higher purposes. And it is that kind, and not the traditional Tantra, that for some reason caught the imagination of people in the West and that almost everyone in the West identifies as Tantra, if they know the word at all.
But here I am writing about traditional Tantra, which as I said has been found congenial by many people of different beliefs. It can safely be said, nevertheless, that all Tantrics yearn for something like a merger with an infinite Consciousness. And here is where morality comes in. What prevents us from merging with infinite Consciousness is our sense of separation from it, our sense of individual identity. That sense increases when we think and act selfishly, and decreases when we think and act selflessly. Ultimately, we have to put all living beings above ourselves. As we find in Christianity, “he that is least among you all, the same shall be great.”
So unless someone simply doesn’t aspire to enlightenment and the end of all suffering, there is an objective morality: right actions are those which empirically help people toward enlightenment, and wrong actions are those which empirically hinder people from enlightenment.
Not only is there an objective morality, but also, we are all born with a compass as to that morality – a sense of right and wrong, a conscience, a sense of when we are acting selfishly. But we may have to peel away layers of ego protection in the forms of various psychological foibles – tribalism, projection, neurotic emotional needs, denial – in order for our consciences to emerge. Only those who are free from such foibles can have a really high level of moral sensitivity to apply to any situation that may arise. And it will be impossible to abandon those mental mechanisms, which keep our cherished egos intact, until we start to taste the transcendent experiences that are the rewards for that abandonment – so that our own physical security, worldly pleasures, and self-congratulation come to seem cheap by comparison.
If I, and believers in various other metaphysical ideas, are wrong in our beliefs, then transcendent experiences can be explained entirely by certain patterns of synaptic firing in the physical matter of our brains. Nonetheless, such experiences will require an escape from ego, an escape most reliably brought on by “a lifetime’s death in love, ardor and selflessness and self-surrender.”
One thing we learn on a spiritual path, as I mentioned, is that ultimately we have to put all living beings above ourselves. But in terms of specific circumstances, does that mean, for instance, that I should let a malaria-carrying mosquito bite me so that it can live? No, because if I live and maintain my health, I am in a position to seek the overall good of living beings on a bigger scale than just that of one mosquito. And the way nature is designed – extremely competitively – the overall good cannot involve the best outcome for every individual living being. The overall good may require me to kill that mosquito rather than feed it.
Thus violence of a kind is an inescapable part of life. The food of every living being is another living (plant or animal) being. In Sanskrit, Jiva jivasya bhojanam. Violence is an inevitable part of life, but what we as human beings who yearn to lose our sense of separation and become one with pure Consciousness can avoid and must always avoid is selfish violence, aggressive violence – violence with an ultimately selfish purpose.
So one of the key inner treasures we acquire along a spiritual path is the simple but passionate feeling that all humans should have a chance to live their lives free from violence as much as possible. I find Tantra superb in drawing us inexorably toward that feeling, but it is a feeling that was within all of us all along, and that adherents of other paths also come to in their own ways.
Among the very specific moral teachings to be found in modern Tantra are the wrongness of legal abortion and of the death penalty. Among those teachings also, we find condemnation of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We find an imperative to put an end to poverty. We find advocacy for environmental protection. We find, in short, a principle and a collection of policy outlooks which other people, coming from their own background, have called the Consistent Life Ethic.
============================
For more of our posts from Acyutananda, see:
The Cure for Headache (poem)
A Daunting Disadvantage for the Pro-Life Side
For more of our posts on different religious paths, see:
Christianity
The Consistent Life Consensus in Ancient Christianity
Fratelli Tutti – Consistent-Life Excerpts
The Consistent Life Ethic: My Christian Perspective
My Christian CLE Perspective: Absolute Nonviolence Across the Issues
Hinduism
Abortion and War are the Karma for Killing Animals
Interfaith
Why the Interfaith Approach is Important
Islam
Breaking Stereotypes in Fearful Times
Paganism
Ancient Roots of the Consistent Life Ethic: Greece
Open Letter to Governor Stitt: the Pro-life Case against the Death Penalty
Dear Governor Stitt:
As an organization, we at the Consistent Life Network have signed on to the letter calling on you to stop Oklahoma executions. The letter was sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Oklahoma, which was seeking many signatories.
As a pro-life/pro-peace group, we strenuously object to the ACLU’s position on abortion. Since we know that you’ve said you would sign any pro-life bill that crossed your desk, for which we applaud you, we want to make the case against the death penalty from a pro-life/anti-abortion perspective. Below we offer words from prominent abortion opponents who have done so.
Quotations in alphabetical order by last name:
Sam Brownback, then Republican United States Senator (later Governor of Kansas)
U.S. News and World Report, April 11, 2005. p. 34
If we’re trying to establish a culture of life, it’s difficult to have the state sponsoring executions.
Colby Coash. Nebraska state senator
quoted in Time Magazine, May 20, 2015
I’m a pro-life guy. I couldn’t reconcile my pro-life beliefs regarding the unborn with doing something different with the condemned.
Hanna Cox
Alabama Executes a Murderer a Day After Banning Abortions
New York Times, May 16, 2019
Alabama cleared the way on Thursday for the scheduled execution of a convicted murderer, a day after the state enacted a near-total ban on abortions, two actions on contentious social issues that often have people across the political spectrum invoking the sanctity of human life.
“It’s a contradiction that I always observed,” said Hannah Cox, the national manager of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty . . . Approving of executions, Ms. Cox said, is “a stance that cheapens the pro-life argument.”
Laura Hollis
Death is Not the Answer
Creators Syndicate, August 22, 2019
The embrace of death as solution is not a phenomenon that admits easily of “left versus right” political — or even cultural — divisions. Americans on the right often defend the death penalty just as vehemently as the left cheerleads for abortion . . .
How easily we accept the conclusion that death is the answer to our most serious problems. Unwanted baby? Kill it. Have an incurable disease? Kill yourself. Commit a heinous crime? The government should kill you. These precedents — and the assumptions about human life that underlie them — should frighten us.
Christian Josi, former Executive Director, American Conservative Union
Life locked away, not death
Washington Times, June 25, 2001
My fundamental problems with the death penalty began as a result of my personal concern, echoed by many on all sides of the political spectrum, that it was inconsistent for one to be “pro-life” on the one hand and condone government execution on the other.
Kathryn Jean Lopez
Stop the Death Penalty
National Review, February 24, 2020
I do think that good Christian pro-life people need to examine the witness of not having mercy for a Nick Sutton. People respond to love. Mercy is for the guilty. We can’t be callous in these circumstances, or our arguments about the life of the most innocent might not be heard. I understand why the governor did what he did, but the death penalty should prompt more of a cultural examination of conscience. It could bring a lot of people of good will — those “pro-life” and “social justice” groups that seem strangely divided — together.
Tom Neuville, leading Republican on the Minnesota’s Senate Judiciary Committee
Minneapolis Star Tribune, December 7, 2003
Life is a gift from God. It isn’t up to us to take it away. Whether you take an innocent life of a baby, or of a person who has committed a heinous act, it is still an act at our hands, and it makes us a less caring and less sensitive society.”
Laura Peredo, president of Ravens Respect Life at Benedictine College
at a press conference supporting a law to repeal the death penalty in Kansas
March 17, 2015
No crime can change the fundamental truth that every human life possesses dignity from the moment of conception until natural death. I am one of a growing number of young people who support repealing the death penalty—a reform that demonstrates our unwavering commitment to safeguarding life at all stages, without exceptions.
Topeka Capitol Journal
Advocates Seek Repeal of Capital Punishment, March 17, 2015
Conservative Republican political figures and the president of a Benedictine College pro-life student group delved Tuesday into ramifications of Kansas law authorizing convicted killers to be sentenced to death. . . .
Gov. Sam Brownback, an anti-abortion Republican who would hold the veto pen if the House and Senate passed a repeal bill, didn’t participate in the rally.
He did say in an interview prior to the event that anti-abortion activists had increasingly been drawn into the capital punishment conversation.
“You hear it connected,” Brownback said. “You hear it said more frequently now.”
Richard Viguerie
When Governments Kill: A conservative argues for abolishing the death penalty, Sojourners, 2009
Conservatives have every reason to believe the death penalty system is no different from any politicized, costly, inefficient, bureaucratic, government-run operation . . . But here the end result is the end of someone’s life. In other words, it’s a government system that kills people. Those of us who oppose abortion believe that it is perhaps the greatest immorality to take an innocent life. While the death penalty is supposed to take the life of the guilty, we know that is not always the case. It should have shocked the consciences of conservatives when various government prosecutors withheld exculpatory, or opposed allowing DNA-tested, evidence in death row cases. To conservatives, that should be deemed as immoral as abortion . . . But even when guilt is certain, there are many downsides to the death penalty system.
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For more of our posts on the death penalty, see:
Why Conservatives Should Oppose the Death Penalty / Destiny Herndon-de la Rosa
Is the Death Penalty Unethical? / Hannah Cox
The Death Penalty and Abortion: The Conservative/Liberal Straitjacket / Rachel MacNair
Racism and the Death Penalty / David Cruz-Uribe
Death Penalty Jurisprudence of Former Missouri Supreme Court Judge Laura Denvir Stith / Laura Denvir Stith
For more of our posts on pro-lifers making a pro-life case against other forms of violence in addition to abortion, see:
Abortion Facilitates Sex Abuse: Documentation
by Rachel MacNair
I recently wrote this item for our newsletter, Peace and Life Connections:
Rachel Maddow had an October 12, 2021 segment where she said, “One provider in Houston spoke of a 12-year-old patient who came in with her mother . . . The 12-year-old said, mom it was an accident, why are they making me keep it? She is 12.”
Twelve-year-olds don’t become pregnant by accident. While it’s possible she was impregnated by a boy near her own age, which is legal, more likely it was an adult pedophile who exploited her, which is statutory rape – a felony.
Why is this not being investigated? How do we stop such crimes if the only concern raised ignores the crime entirely?
This is another case where a focus on the availability of abortion leaves people oblivious to such glaring alarm bells.
Rachel Maddow
In addition to the 12-year-old that Rachel Maddow cites, there’s documentation of more real-life experience. Below I offer a sampling of cases that made it to court. Given the nature of the problem, instances where the abuse never comes to light are probably far more frequent than those where it does. And when it does, it only makes it to court a small portion of the time.
My notes are in italics.
Colorado – Smith
Smith v. Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, Case Number: 2014CV31778
Excerpt from Amended Complaint, Summary of the Case:
This case seeks economic and non-economic damages arising from the Defendants’ multiple failures to inquire about how a thirteen-year-old girl became pregnant, or what her relationship was to the adult man who brought her to the Defendants for an abortion, despite numerous opportunities to speak to the girl alone; their failures to report known or suspected sexual abuse despite numerous indications that the man had sexually abused the girl; and administration of a long-term and undetectable form of birth control to the girl despite her fear of needles, all of which enabled the man to continue his years of sexual abuse of the girl without discovery or consequence.
In July of 2012, the adult man was charged with two counts of felony sexual abuse and, in January of 2013, he was sentenced to 28 years in prison.
Ohio – Roe
Roe v. Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region, 122 Ohio St.3d 399, 2009-Ohio-2973.
Excerpt from the Complaint:
- In the fall of 2003, Jane engaged in a sexual relationship with her 21-year-old soccer coach, John Haller. At the time, Jane was 13 and in the eighth grade. The sexual relationship continued through 2004, and in March of that year, Jane discovered that she was pregnant.
- Jane told Haller. Haller convinced Jane to have an abortion . . . Haller called Jane and told her to schedule the abortion. And he also instructed her that if she was asked to provide a parental telephone number, she should give Planned Parenthood his cell-phone number in lieu of her father’s phone number.
- After the abortion, a Depo-Provera shot was administered to Jane, and she was given condoms. Haller and Jane resumed their sexual relationship. But within three days of the abortion, Haller ended the relationship. After the breakup, Jane and Haller’s sister, also a classmate of Jane’s, had an argument about Haller and his relationship with Jane. A teacher overheard the argument, including the references to Jane’s sexual relationship with Haller, and reported the suspected sexual abuse to the police.
- After a criminal investigation, Haller was convicted of seven counts of sexual battery. . . .
Washington – Savanah
State of Washington v. Savanah, No. 74924-2-1
Excerpt from appeals document:
After Savanah’s daughter, R, disclosed that she had been sexually abused, the State charged Savanah with four domestic violence sex offenses. At trial, R testified at length to the abuse. R stated that Savanah raped her for the first time when she was 14 years old. She recounted sexual abuse that continued for the next seven years.
R testified that she became pregnant three times, when she was 14, 16, and 17 years old. In each case, Savanah took her to Planned Parenthood for an abortion. Records from Planned Parenthood confirmed that Savanah took R to the clinics for the procedures.
Washington, D.C. – Butler
Butler v. Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, D.C., Case NO. 1:08-CV_00231. Filed February 12, 2008; Settled March 16, 2009
The petition states that plaintiff was 13 years old and became pregnant due to a rape; her mother took her in for the abortion. There’s no indication in the petition that the Planned Parenthood staff collected evidence to help identify the rapist with DNA, and no further information on whether he was ever charged.
Excerpt from Complaint:
- That within twenty-four (24) hours of her discharge from Defendant’s facility after the termination procedure, the minor Plaintiff . . . became very ill.
- That on or about September 8, 2006, the minor Plaintiff . . . presented to the emergency room at Civista Medical Center with severe abdominal pain and peritonitis.
- That a CT scan of the minor Plaintiff’s abdomen on September 8, 2006, showed a significant amount of bleeding in the abdomen with free air. Consequently, the minor Plaintiff underwent immediate emergency surgery to evacuate the large abdominal bleeding the day after the termination procedure performed by Defendant . . .
- That during the surgery on September 8, 2006, it was discovered, intra-operatively, that the minor Plaintiff . . . had suffered the following injuries as a direct and proximate result of the termination procedure performed by Defendant . . . :
- severe abdominal bleeding;
- severe vaginal injury;
- severe injury to the cervix;
- significant uterine perforation; and
- a small bowel tear.
- That a significant portion of the fetus that was allegedly removed from the minor Plaintiff . . . during the pregnancy termination performed by Defendant, was also found inside the minor Plaintiff’s abdomen on September 8, 2006.
- That the minor Plaintiff . . . is now infertile for the rest of her life due to the injuries sustained.
Conclusion
The first three cases show how abortion covers up the crimes and allows them to continue being committed. The fourth involved no cover-up, but shows that abortion isn’t just a simple solution to a victim’s problem.
Proponents of abortion availability need to come to grips with this. Offering instances of those under the age of consent – children too young to do the tasks of motherhood well – as an argument for abortion means ignoring the grim reality that their becoming victims of sex abuse, and therefore impregnated, becomes far more likely when abortion is readily available. Abortion facilitates the crime.
And treating abortion as the solution to the problem, without even bringing up the idea that the crime should be prevented, obviously facilitates the crime even more.
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For more of our posts on abortion’s relationship to sex abuse, see:
The Message of “Never Rarely Sometimes Always”: Abortion Gets Sexual Predators Off the Hook
How Abortion is Useful for Rape Culture
Re-Imaging Our Worth
by Rosalyn Mitchell
Rachael Denhollander is a survivor. She fights for justice as a Christian lawyer, mother, activist, and former gymnast. The author of What is a Girl Worth? asks a core question of the sexual abuse scandal that rocked United States Gymnastics, the Olympic movement, and broader society. She is the first public accuser of the now-convicted pedophile, former Team USA medical doctor Larry Nassar.
As a physician, Nassar preyed on young women, using his privilege to groom athletes, befriend them, and abuse their trust.
It would be naïve to assume that one man’s evil was responsible –a convenient answer that neglects the structural failures of institutions. All levels of power, with various culpabilities, are responsible, from local club gymnastics coaches to national team staff to organizations like United States Gymnastics and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Recently four survivors, Ally Raisman, Maggie Nichols, McKayla Maroney, and Simone Biles, testified at a United States Senate congressional hearing on the failure of these institutions. The truth came to light due to an alliance of brave survivors, journalists, law enforcement, and the broader public.
Therefore, as a gymnastics fan, I choose to reflect on this topic. I want to thank the online gym community, the Gymternet, for their coverage, specifically the Gymcastic Podcast and The Skating Lesson.
Using the lens of the Consistent Life Ethic, I ask: how could society allow such rampant abuse?
I’m not pretending to have all the answers and ask that we listen to the survivors. I write my perspective critiquing society’s commodification of human worth and argue that sexual abuse violently dehumanizes its victims.
This topic is a life issue as all people deserve to live free of violence from fertilization to natural death. We must protect human life against commodification as the worth of countless little girls is greater than any gold medal.
A traditionally elite sport like gymnastics sacrifices both bodies and minds to the dark side of the Olympic movement. During the Tokyo Olympics, as during every Olympics, the public fell in love with athletes. Gymnasts like Sunisa Lee, the first female Hmong American and Asian athlete to win an Olympic All-Around gold medal. She competed with legendary teammates like Simone Biles, the greatest gymnast of all time.
Yet for every Lee, and rarer still Biles, are millions of nameless failed athletes. The grim reality of the quantity needed to produce champions parallels a factory. American gymnastics became golden after adopting the merciless militancy needed to win Olympic gold.
The Karolyis, a pair of Romanian coaches who coached Nadia Comaneci, adopted a semi-centralized training system at the notorious Ranch in wooded Texas, where champions were made. Marta Karolyi oversaw the rise of the Women’s Artistic Gymnastics team as the National Team Coordinator. Success followed, counted in gold medals, with the program dominating the Rio Olympics.
Behind the scenes, the exploitation was an open secret: the control, the eating disorders, the injuries. Therefore, in an ironic twist of fate, a pedophile, Dr. Larry Nassar, offered relief from psychological and emotional abuse. Presenting himself as a friend, he would feed the gymnasts contraband like candy, flatter them with kind words, and offer “healing” pelvic massages. Many gymnasts did not know until afterwards of the sexual abuse disguised as a legitimate medical procedure.
How about parents? Away. The isolated setting discouraged communication with the outside world. Speaking up meant certain blacklisting in a culture that demanded obedience.
Imagine being a young gymnast. Would you risk your Olympic dream? All these factors enabled sexual abuse.
What for? Money. Fame. Ego. A cruel industry that capitalizes on pretty girls doing extraordinary athletics being commodified as plastic dolls.
Very few athletes, especially young women, are allowed to display their personalities. When interviewed, they’re trained to answer with empty phrases like, “I only want to do my best.” Never in terms of winning, as outward ambition is inappropriate. Athletes in a sport like gymnastics are performers, not people with thoughts and emotions.
It’s because of the broader culture of dehumanization that such abuse can occur, because human worth is commercialized. Phrases like “the cost of living” assign human life a numeric value. Life is cheap. Easily replaceable. People are taught that if they cannot perform they are disposable, as utility defines human dignity.
If gymnastics’ success was not profitable, I boldly argue, the abuse would not have occurred, at least not on this level. The cover-up and systemic failure to protect young girls are motivated by profit. One could not speak the truth because the truth was too expensive.
I counter this narrative by arguing that human life is too valuable not to speak up. A human being is inherently more precious than any gold medal. To answer the question that Rachael Denhollander asks – “What is a Girl Worth?” – the answer is that she is invaluable.
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For another post from this author, see: 300 Roses
For some of our posts on women’s rights, see:
Gendercide: Millions of “Missing” (Dead) Women
Abortion and Violence Against Pregnant Women / Martha Shuping, M.D.
The Myth of Sexual Autonomy / Julianne Wiley
How Abortion is Useful for Rape Culture / Rachel MacNair