Zoom Conference: April 24, 2021
Various people took screenshots and offer reflections.
Bill Samuel
Sen. Katrina Jackson was a really inspiring keynote speaker. The spirit she exudes is wonderful and it set the tone for the conference. The other speakers I heard from the workshops I attended and the closing session were also excellent. Those planning it did a great job of getting a diverse set of speakers. The conference delved even deeper than the issues themselves with a lot of focus on how we act towards others with different perspectives, which reflects the spirit behind the Consistent Life Ethic of respect for each and every human being. There was much excellent dialogue among the attendees which was encouraging to all.
Louisiana State Senator Katrina Jackson
Julia Smucker
Inclusivity and bridge-building were running themes throughout, not simply in a touchy-feely way but brought alongside the need to acknowledge tensions and human complexities. A key piece of advice given by keynote speaker Katrina Jackson, and echoed by several panelists in the breakout sessions I attended, was to take the common ground we have with people we’re working with on specific issues as a starting point; when people have seen our genuine passion for things they are also passionate about, this can eventually create openings for meaningful dialogue on points of disagreement and can prevent others from putting us into a box (or us from putting others into a box, for that matter). This resonated strongly with my experience as a consistent-lifer who’s been involved in advocacy on multiple issues.
Political Spectrum Workshop
Racial Justice Workshop
John Whitehead
At this great conference’s closing session, which was co-hosted by Darren Calhoun and Carol Crossed, a theme that came up repeatedly was living with tension. Darren and Carol brought up the tension between admiring historical figures’ virtues and accomplishments while also recognizing their hateful attitudes and actions. I thought this theme was also relevant to other issues participants discussed over the course of conference. Katrina Jackson’s talk made me think of tensions involved in working with people on a single issue we agree on, even as we disagree on other issues. Sarah Terzo and Sophie Trist’s session on writing made me think of the tension between writing’s, especially fiction’s, artifice and its possibility of getting at some truth. During Carol’s session on depolarizing conversations on life issues, we discussed how to be honest without alienating people. Defending life involves living with the tensions created by trying to balance so many different concerns. We must each negotiate these tensions in our own ways.
Carol Crossed / Darren Calhoun
Scenes from the song “Tear Down the Walls” from The Many. Top two photos: Leslie Michele and Darren Calhoun.
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For more of our conference posts, see:
Progressive Prolifers at the Progressive Magazine 100th Anniversary Celebration / Mary Krane Derr
Roe Anniversary Protests, 2019
When Women Lead: The Pro-life Women’s Conference / C.J. Williams
Rehumanize International – 6th Annual Conference (2019)
#Rehumanize2020: Experiences of a Virtual Conference (2020)
Death Penalty Jurisprudence of Former Missouri Supreme Court Judge Laura Denvir Stith
Author’s note: I recently retired from the Supreme Court of Missouri after serving as a judge of that court for 20 years. My brother, Richard Stith, a member of the Consistent Life Network, thought its members would be interested in learning about some of the death penalty decisions and dissents which I wrote while a member of the Court. I am not a member of the Consistent Life Network, and no doubt do not agree with all of the views of its membership. But, because I share the membership’s interest in the fair application of the death penalty, I have agreed to discuss some of my most important death penalty opinions and dissents. Please keep in mind as you read this or read about any legal decision that the role of a judge is to express the judge’s understanding of the law and justice, not the judge’s personal views. Because the law is complex, wise judges of good conscience may disagree as to how a case should be decided. It is through thoughtful expressions of their differing views in opinions and dissents that the law grows and improves.
The most significant opinion I have authored in terms of its impact on the law and on justice throughout the United States is State ex rel. Simmons v Roper, 112 S.W.3d 397 (Mo banc 2003), which was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roper v. Simmons, 43 US 551 (2005). Mr. Simmons was found guilty of a murder committed when he was 17 in the 1990’s. The jury imposed a death sentence after the prosecutor argued that if he was this dangerous at age 17, how awful would he be later? This was then thought constitutional because while in 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court had held that it was cruel and unusual punishment to execute someone who committed murder at age 15 or younger due to their lack of maturity, by 1989 it had held it was not cruel and unusual punishment to execute someone who was 16 or 17 at the time of their crime, implicitly suggesting that such an execution would not violate our “evolving standards of decency.” Similarly, that year in a separate case the U.S. Supreme Court held that it was constitutional to execute someone who was intellectually disabled at the time of their crime under our evolving standards of decency.
So, when in 2002 the attorney general of Missouri asked the Missouri Supreme Court to sign Mr. Simmons’ death warrant, the latest U.S. Supreme Court decision would by itself indicate that was ok. But, that year, in Atkins, the U.S. Supreme Court had reversed its holding about the intellectually disabled and had held that it violated our evolving standards of decency to execute someone who was intellectually disabled.
To a majority of the Missouri Supreme Court, this raised the important question of whether the U.S. Supreme Court would find that standards for execution of juveniles also had evolved since 1989. In both cases, in the interim, additional state legislatures had barred such executions, while none had added in an approval not previously present, and more had been learned about the lack of full development of a juvenile’s brain while in their teens.
A minority of my colleagues said this was for the U.S Supreme Court to revisit if it wanted, and that it was presumptuous for us to do so, and many scholars around the country offered similar criticism. But, this view overlooked that the Missouri Supreme Court was almost certainly Mr. Simmons’ last opportunity for consideration of whether he was eligible to be executed, as the U.S. Supreme Court takes a case from Missouri or any other particular state only once every three or four years, and normally refuses cases that simply apply prior law. So, if it said he could be executed, the U.S. Supreme Court almost certainly would have denied review and Mr. Simmons would have been executed without anyone determining whether under then-current community mores, his execution was cruel and unusual. The majority of the Missouri Supreme Court explained that it believed it therefore was its obligation to determine this question. Further, we explained we believed the U.S. Supreme Court had invited us to do so by holding in their earlier cases that what is cruel and unusual varies over time, that it reflects the current community consciousness, and that evolving standards of decency might prohibit what had not been thought to be cruel or unusual in the past. So, my opinion stated, it turned out correctly, that Missouri had authority to look at the 2003 community standards and see if they had evolved to bar execution for crimes committed by juveniles.
The decision I authored for the court rejected the argument that only legislative enactments could be looked at to determine community standards, noting that the U.S. Constitution does not state that state legislatures shall decide what is cruel and unusual. Rather it broadly states that such punishment is prohibited, thereby leaving it to the courts to make this determination.
Accordingly, in prior cases the U.S. Supreme Court had looked to numerous sources in addition to legislatures, including religious and cultural and civic and medical groups. Applying this same analysis, the Missouri decision held it was a violation of the cruel and unusual punishment clause to execute someone for a crime committed as a juvenile. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed using exactly our reasoning and quoting our decision twice. Execution of juveniles is now barred in the United States, and more than 70 youths were taken off death row around the country as a result of that ruling.
Another important majority decision I authored was State v. Whitfield, 107 S.W.3d 253 (Mo. banc 2003). It had multiple important holdings. First, the Missouri Supreme Court held that it believed the U.S. Supreme Court cases simply set a minimum standard which the states must follow in applying constitutional provisions, including the right to habeas corpus. But, we held in Whitfield, we believed states are free to set a higher standard. Therefore, even though the U.S. Supreme Court had refused to apply retroactively its decision that a jury rather than a judge must find every element of a crime necessary to impose the death penalty, we held Missouri would do so. The U.S. Supreme Court later held in a case called Danforth that this was correct, that states were free to apply the right to habeas corpus more liberally than the U.S. Supreme Court had, citing in the course of its decision a law review article I wrote that had been published in the interim in the Valparaiso Law Review, “Contrast of State and Federal Court Authority to Grant Habeas Relief,” 38 Valparaiso Law Rev. 421 (Spring 2004). Whitfield also held that because the jury had been unable to reach a decision whether to impose death, that was in effect an acquittal of death, since one can be given the death penalty only if all jurors agree to impose it. Therefore, the defendant’s sentence could not be relitigated.
A later decision of the Missouri Supreme Court narrowed another holding in Whitfield, in which it had held that juries had to make the determination whether factors in mitigation of punishment outweighed those in aggravation because it is a factual question. The majority said, over my dissent, that this is a subjective decision which the judge can make if the jury deadlocks. State v. Wood, 580 S.W.23d 566 (Mo. banc 2019).
Other important death penalty dissents I have written often have involved intellectual disability and whether and how it should affect imposition of the death penalty.
State ex rel Cole v. Griffith, 460 S.W.3d 349 (Mo banc 2015), dealt with a man who had a mental disability. Unusually, this was because, while he was not found incompetent at trial, in the years he was in prison his mental competence had so deteriorated that he was hearing voices and showing other symptoms of psychosis. The majority decided that his claims of incompetence were not sufficiently credible to entitle him to a hearing, even though, as I pointed out in my dissent, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that if a threshold showing of incompetence is made at the time of execution then one cannot be executed, because it would be cruel and unusual punishment to execute someone who did not understand the nature of and reason for his death. To deny a factual hearing on this key factual issue was manifestly unjust.
State ex rel. Clayton v Griffith, 457 S.W.3d 735 (Mo. banc 2015), involved what I stated in my death penalty dissent was a particularly egregious violation of the rights of a mentally disabled individual. Mr. Clayton had an injury causing him partial loss of his frontal lobe. He argued that made him ineligible for the death penalty. The majority said, in part, that he was required to show that he had this mental disability prior to age 18, and since his traumatic brain injury did not occur until he was 32, whatever it did to him did not constitute mental incompetence and therefore could not justify changing his sentence to life in prison. I argued in dissent that he was entitled to a hearing to show he was mentally incompetent as a result of the traumatic brain injury, without regard to how or when he got his injury. The requirement to show the mental disability was diagnosed before age 18 is to prevent someone faking a mental disability later — it serves no purpose where, as in that case, all agreed defendant suffered an injury which caused his mental disability after age 18. One should look to the purpose of a rule and not apply it blindly to do an injustice.
Finally, in Johnson v. State, 580 S.W.3d 895 (Mo. banc 2019), Mr. Johnson’s counsel failed to tell him that if he were found by the jury to be intellectually disabled, he could not get the death penalty. Instead, the lawyer told him he better take a plea deal for life in prison without parole because otherwise he likely would get the death penalty. The lawyer gave this advice because he did not understand the difference between intellectual disability, which if proven means you are less culpable and under the U.S. Supreme Court Atkins decision means you are not eligible for the death penalty, and mental incompetence, which means you cannot be held guilty because you did not know right from wrong. Under Atkins, even if you knew right from wrong and so were guilty, you could not get a death sentence. Had Mr. Johnson known this, he would not have pleaded guilty because the worst he could get was a life sentence, and if the jury believed his defenses that he was misled by others due to his disability, then he might have gotten a lesser sentence than that. The majority refused to provide even a hearing, although his I.Q. was without question below 70 – in fact, he tested at an I.Q. of 53. I said in dissent, “What is at stake is whether a man who is intellectually disabled must serve life in prison without parole because his counsel failed to understand the meaning or consequences of intellectual disability under the law governing imposition of the death penalty.”
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For more of our posts on the death penalty, see:
Is the Death Penalty Unethical? / Hannah Cox
Why Conservatives Should Oppose the Death Penalty / Destiny Herndon-de la Rosa
Racism and the Death Penalty / David Cruz-Uribe
The Death Penalty and Abortion: The Conservative/Liberal Straitjacket / Rachel MacNair
Instead of Division, Schools of Thought
by Rachel MacNair
Several kinds of arguments show up in most large, long-lasting nonviolent social movements. Activists often express distress about these divisions, thinking more unity would mean more success.
I’d like to make the case that instead of thinking of “unity” – an unworkable concept when dealing with large groups of people with strong opinions – we should realize that these kinds of arguments happen so constantly that it’s better to expect people to have them. We can work with these differences harmoniously.
If we’re aware of it, these differing schools of thought can actually be used to make all movements far more effective.
Not Division, But Multiplication
- the “purists” vs. the “pragmatists”
Purists say compromise is immoral and detrimental in the long run. Pragmatists argue for an “all or something” approach, believing it is immoral to allow violence to continue while waiting for purity.
These two approaches can complement each other. The purists keep the compromises from getting too watered-down. The pragmatists can use the purists to make themselves appear more moderate.
We once had a major heated debate in the division of peace psychology in the American Psychological Association (APA) on the topic of torture under the Bush administration and the APA response to it; I was president of the division during one of the years of this raging debate, 2013. I discerned that this was what the controversy was about: the purists were accusing the pragmatists of selling out, and the pragmatists were accusing the purists of posturing rather than getting something done.
I proposed to both sides the point that the two approaches complement each other. The pragmatists caught on to this immediately, and confirmed it: on the APA Council, they had been seen as a bunch of radical extremists – until the more extreme purists made a lot of noise. Suddenly, with the same position, they were the moderates, and the people more reasonable to negotiate with. Yet they did have to say that they couldn’t water it down too much for fear of the purists in their group (and of course, they didn’t want to water it down too much, so the purist agitation was a big help).
I also had an easy time explaining the two categories to the purists as the basis of the dispute. It was a little harder to get across to them why it was better to have both schools of thought rather than everybody going with just theirs.
The proposal did pass in the Council, so there was a step taken in the right direction. But all of us agreed this wasn’t the final thing we wanted to achieve. That came later with a major media exposé of the torture situation, which suddenly put everything in a new light. That exposé happened, of course, in part through the continued activism of the purists, yet the APA Council was more open to it because they had taken the previous step.
In the case of the pro-life movement, the American Life Lobby – now changed to the American Life League – split off from the National Right to Life Committee early on for this very reason: NRLC was willing to make legislative compromises to get legislation passed, and ALL was only willing to tolerate entirely good legislation. There’s a reason they changed from Lobby to League; they do better at the tasks that purists are good at.
- “reform” vs. “root cause”
There is a parable of the people of a village who awake to find babies floating in their nearby river. They immediately help the babies, pull them out, dry and clothe and feed and shelter them. This happens day after day. Finally one person decides to go up along the river to find out why on earth all these babies are being thrown in.
This parable is often told as an explanation of a radical approach – that is, one that goes to the root. The babies are obviously better off not being placed in danger than they are being rescued.
Still, while the person is searching for the root cause, the babies are still in desperate need of immediate assistance.
What if the person can’t find the root cause? Or can find it, but can’t do anything once found? Or can do something, but it takes a long time? Or gets it done, only to find that another cause of babies being thrown in the river pops up somewhere else?
Both approaches are therefore needed. Reforms and immediate aid not only help right away, but the assertive example that people care about this problem may end up being part of the root-cause solution, since apathy is likely to be part of what causes the problem. Incremental steps toward the ultimate solution may also be more workable than trying to get it in one fell swoop; still, it’s important to keep the root causes in mind rather than merely tinker.
- the “street” people vs. the “straight” people
Nonviolent “street” people argue it’s immoral to wait for normal legal channels rather than taking direct action immediately. “Straight” people believe respectability is crucial to success.
This isn’t a strict division. Both groups attend legal demonstrations. Those who may engage in civil disobedience might still lobby for a certain bill.
Still, there are usually tensions, as those desperate for respectability think those who opt for the priority of urgency are hurting the movement, and vice versa.
Again, these two perspectives provide for a more holistic movement. Those in the street who communicate urgency can be ignored if seen as crazy and not respectable. Those who are respectable can be ignored because the issue isn’t understood as urgent. Both together can bring about a greater likelihood of being listened to.
I remember a time when I was inside, attending a state convention of the National Organization for Women, when a large group of pro-lifers showed up outside. They were yelling “Stop the killing now!” as a chant. Since the other NOW conference attenders knew I had a pro-life feminist position, they came up to me to explain how they weren’t in favor of killing, and I was able to dialog with them reasonably. Without me, the folks outside would have been dismissed entirely. Without them, I would have been regarded as an eccentric and dismissed entirely. We got so much more done because both of us were there.
- the “old-timers” vs. the “newcomers”
Newcomers are obviously crucial to a movement. A movement can’t grow without them. They also bring in fresh new ideas, enthusiasm, and help avoid ruts.
Old-timers are also crucial. They have experience of what does and doesn’t work, and of what has happened before.
Newcomers who are brimming with new-found enthusiasm may also have the impression that nothing has gone on before. They weren’t there when it happened. They may think the movement wasn’t doing successful things because it hasn’t been all the way successful yet. The contempt for the experience and accumulated wisdom of those who have been working hard for years can be very painful to the targets of the contempt. (I speak from personal experience.)
- the “single-issue” vs. the “everything’s connected”
A focus on a single issue has greater clarity. It allows more people to work on a problem, since widely divergent views on other issues don’t matter.
A focus on multiple related issues has greater coherence. It allows for a greater sense of community among people who are concerned with inter-relationships in a larger context: various peace issues, feminism, civil rights, anti-poverty, and so on. The consistent life ethic, of course, excels in this way of thinking.
The different approaches are useful in different contexts. Because there are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches, some discernment about what’s called for in specific situations is helpful.
We in the Consistent Life Network take the multi-issue approach as a matter of organizational mission. That doesn’t mean that individual blog posts or items in the newsletter can’t be focused on a single issue. Many of our sympathizers and member groups are focused on a single issue, and we encourage that – for those situations in which it’s the most helpful.
Conclusion
We all take first one side and then the other when it comes to newcomers and old-timers, but on everything else, some people will firmly decide on one side rather than the other. If we’re more conscious of how these can actually all fit together, we can stop having frustrations that we do one way while other people do another. We have to, because these differing perspectives are bound to show up, as demonstrated by the observation that they practically always have.
But they also don’t have to be clear distinctions. I, for one, commonly find myself on either side in each of these, depending on the circumstance. Individuals can always choose one, the other, or both, with some discernment.
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For more of our posts on similar topics, see:
Specialization or Generalization? The Many Ways of Following the Consistent Life Ethic
The Death Penalty and Abortion: The Conservative/Liberal Straitjacket
by Rachel MacNair
A freelance writer recently interviewed me on this question: Why is it that U.S. states tend to divide out, with some having the death penalty but passing restrictions on abortion, while others fund abortion and don’t have the death penalty? You can see the list here of death penalty states and abortion-funding states; while five are both and ten are neither, the rest do divide out. A similar pattern can be seen in countries world-wide.
From a conventional political point of view, it’s a conservative/liberal distinction. But from a consistent life ethic perspective, it is indeed puzzling.
What Do Conservative and Liberal Mean?
Right-wing and left-wing aren’t rigidly distinct categories. Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty makes excellent abolition arguments from a conservative viewpoint, as of course do all conservative consistent-lifers. Conversely, the liberal and radical consistent-lifers show that opposition to abortion is quite capable of being cast in liberal principles.
When I was growing up, I was taught:
conservative = wants to keep things the same
liberal = wants some changes
and
reactionary = wants to go back to the way things were
radical = wants things changed down to the root
But if you go with that understanding, then positions would surely change from issue to issue. Some things should be conserved, some reformed, some changes we did turned out to be a bad idea and we’re better off dispensing with them, and some things really do need changing down to their very foundation.
Under this scheme, all pro-lifers are radical, by definition. While reforms along the way to the goal are acceptable, the ultimate goal is a change to respect human life, a societal change down to the very core.
This works fine for me. I was raised to think that “radical” is a good term, one I could be pleased to apply to myself. It applied not merely to avoiding wars, but getting to the root causes of war so the idea wouldn’t even come up. It applied to getting at the root causes of racism, and the death penalty, and poverty. Reforms are better than not having reforms, but I was in the group that regarded liberals as too right-wing.
Yet the only people I commonly hear calling pro-lifers “radicals” are our opponents, and they intend it to be pejorative. They mean “extreme,” and imply being extreme is a bad thing. But they clearly don’t mean left-wing by the term.
Still, even if it’s badly over-simplified, for the sake of insight, I’m going to use the no change/yes change distinction to answer the question as to why states and countries divide out as much as they do on which of the two forms of violence – executions or abortions – they prefer.
History of the Death Penalty: Keep Things the Same
I find that I get unanimous agreement, including from military people, when I make this point: The only reason we have wars now is that we’ve had them for thousands of years. If we hadn’t had them all this time, and someone suggested them as an innovation, no one would buy it.
The same applies to racism. The color of a person’s skin could have genealogical implications with associated positive views of heritage. But the idea that some shades of skin color are to be seen negatively while others show superiority is so silly on its face that there’s only one possible explanation for its existence: there’s a history. Without that history, if it were proposed fresh now, it would be laughed out of consideration.
I’d say the same is true of the death penalty – and the racism it’s associated with. If executions hadn’t been happening all along, they wouldn’t work as a sudden new innovation now.
All the innovations in this area have been toward fewer executions: apply them only to serious crimes like murder rather than mere pickpocketing; make the methods more “humane”; stop putting them on public display.
But for people who live in death penalty states or countries who want to keep things the same, that means tenaciously holding on to the death penalty.
History of Abortion: Changes
We’ve had feticide and infanticide throughout history as well, but there have been three major innovations:
1. Patriarchs – understood as the Head of the Household – used to decide whether or not a woman got an abortion, and her opinion on the matter was irrelevant. If she sought it herself, it was often to hide having been sexually abused in some way, or it was adapting to a harsh and judgmental society that was indifferent to her real needs. The concept that it’s a woman’s right to choose is a startling new innovation of the 20th century. The 19th century feminists never understood it that way. Large numbers of women now, especially those who’ve had abortions and are now active in the pro-life movement, don’t see it that way. But a large number of women do, and it’s the way it’s commonly presented in the mainstream media.
2. Abortions, along with childbirth, used to be harshly unsafe to the mothers. They’re still not as safe to women as proponents make them out to be, but medical technology has improved enough that asserting it as safe isn’t as obviously off the wall as it would have been in days of yore.
3. Eugenics, the idea of breeding “better” people, arose in the 19th century and had an especially strong following in the early 20th century. It’s more in disrepute now – as seen by Planned Parenthood removing Margaret Sanger’s name from their Manhattan center because of her eugenic and therefore racist views – but the philosophy lingers in pro-abortion rhetoric. At the time, eugenics was understood as what progressives believed. They saw themselves as following science, rather than religious superstition.
This gives some background for why abortion slipped into being perceived as the left-wing position. It constituted change.
Conclusion: The Workable Innovation
My experience is that the consistent life ethic offers a more logical and principled way of figuring out what to favor and what to oppose. It’s a coherent philosophy. Unlike the various kinds of violence, it’s something that could be offered as an innovation and people would buy it, as we currently observe.
It’s not that we don’t find instances of it in history, even ancient history – Judaism, early Christianity, ancient Greece, the Chinese philosopher Mo Tsu, etc. But when we find it, it’s always an innovation, and it always faces opposition from people who want to keep things the way they are. Even if they’re violent things.
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For similar posts, see:
More than Double the Trouble: Another Way of Connecting [intersectionality]
Different Ways of Looking at Issues
The Price of Violence: When Dehumanizing the Vulnerable Hurts One’s Own Causes
Specialization or Generalization? The Many Ways of Following the Consistent Life Ethic
Culture of Conscience: Would You Pay Taxes that Fund Abortions if Hyde and Helms were Repealed?
by Thad Crouch
(see at the bottom for a link of a video of the author speaking the same content)
Taxes for Violence
This month, several pro-choice congressional representatives introduced the Equal Access to Abortion Coverage bill to repeal the Hyde Amendment and allow federal funding for domestic abortion violence for any reason to any woman receiving federally funded health care or insurance. Some representatives also introduced the Abortion is Health Care Everywhere Act to repeal the Helms Amendment and allow federal funding for international abortions.
Hopefully, these bills won’t pass. Yet it may prove helpful to consider how pro-life taxpayers might respond if Hyde and Helms were repealed. Such laws would violate not only the right to life; they would also violate the rights to freedom of conscience and religion.
Financial self-help author Vicki Robin says “Money is something we choose to trade our life energy for” when we work. This implies that our use of money is a use of our life energy. Forcing pro-lifers to put our lives’ energies toward violating unborn humans’ dignity is also a violation of our own consciences and human dignity.
Would you choose to risk prison and property seizures or comply with a law to pay for abortion violence?
Imagine how you might feel if your paycheck or home were seized to fund killing unborn humans in their mothers’ wombs. Would the fact that, if you paid your taxes, some would also go to some good, conscionable purposes make it ok for you?
Stop reading for a moment. Slowly take a deep breath. Think about it. Feel it.
We might be surprised as pro-lifers to learn how easily we could avail ourselves of experienced, practical advice and decades of wisdom from the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC).
Their experience shows that fear of what the IRS can do is greater than what they historically actually do to war tax resisters. The IRS doesn’t treat honest war tax resisters as evaders. There are always options to agree to an IRS payment plan, and only a few dozen out of tens of thousands of war tax resisters have been imprisoned in the last 60 years. Nearly all those incarcerations were for refusing to disclose assets, and that’s avoidable by invoking the Fifth Amendment.
Pro-lifers could take advantage of these. Yet – don’t begin a construction project without counting the costs. NWTRCC educates people to make their own conscientious decisions and teaches multiple methods of resistance.
There are legal methods such as living on a low untaxable income. There are also ways to reduce risk with illegal strategies, such as refusing to pay a symbolic amount or by putting would-be taxes in an escrow account that pays interest towards life-affirming projects. The latter allows one to withdraw those funds to avoid money or property seizures.
Many war tax resisters choose not to pay a significant percentage or perhaps even all of our taxes and instead redirect them to charities. Some of us change jobs, work as contractors, work under-the-table, and/or don’t use bank accounts to reduce risk. We find keeping our consciences clear and our life energy nonviolent worth the risk. Some of us transform IRS repercussions into opportunities for public witness, media coverage, and community support.
Nonviolent Taxes
Pro-lifers could also introduce legislation to protect our freedoms of conscience and religion by using the model of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund, which advocates for the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act. This will protect the First Amendment rights for those with deeply held moral or ethical beliefs – religious or not – about paying for war. If passed, such persons would not pay less in taxes. Instead, our taxes would go into a fund that Congress could budget for any non-military purposes.
The U.S. peace tax fund campaign has been going on since 1971. Two congressional-ordered U.S. Department of the Treasury studies showed that a peace tax fund would increase government revenue while protecting Americans’ freedom. Yet it has not become law.
Even though the government recognizes Conscientious Objection against participating in the military and killing in war — as long as it’s a deeply held sincere objection to participation in all wars without criteria designating which wars are ethically conscionable — it remains illegal to love one’s enemies and respect their lives while earning a livable income.
While the Hyde and Helms Amendments somewhat recognize how seriously many Americans object to federal funding of abortion, they don’t restrict state abortion funds. Since 16 states fund abortions, and 27 fund the death penalty, the Consistent Life Network suggests that possible future state referendums based on the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund could be used to protect conscience from state abortions and executions.
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) – versions of which also exist at the state level – declares that the government may not burden or restrict a person’s exercise of religion unless it demonstrates that the burden or restriction furthers a compelling government interest and is done through the least restrictive means.
The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) may more likely apply RFRA to abortion tax resisters than war tax resisters for two reasons.
- First, it may be more politically feasible in some states to pass a Pro-life Tax Fund into a law that finds its way to SCOTUS than passing a Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act.
- Second, the Supreme Court ruled that RFRA protects the religious freedom of Hobby Lobby from the government forcing them to pay insurance for employees’ birth control pills. Hobby Lobby asserted that any birth control method that kills human zygotes aborts humans. Here SCOTUS ruled that the conscience of a corporation, which is a legal person, is protected from killing an actual living human that SCOTUS does not recognize as a legal person.
Since Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., no war tax resistance case has appeared before SCOTUS, and perhaps not at any level of the U.S. judicial system. Perhaps such a case will one day appear in court. That case could argue that the government has no compelling interest since the Treasury found that a Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act would increase revenue.
Once RFRA does that, then one next logical avenue might be to create tax laws that comply with both a new RFRA precedent and existing SCOTUS precedents that eventually applied Conscientious Objection to military participation for those who object based on deeply held, sincere non-religious conscientious beliefs. Should not actual human persons have the same legal protections as a corporate “person” to object to paying for killing humans?
Culture of Conscience
Members of Veterans For Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War (now About Face) salute Conscientious Objector Travis Bishop as he is shackled and led to prison after court-martial. Fort Hood, Texas, 08/14/2009. Photo by Eric Thompson, used with permission.
Consider that the more our society can empathize with and support others’ freedom of conscience to refuse cooperation with violent or unjust behaviors, the more we can engender people’s growth from a limited ethic toward a more Consistent Life Ethic. Thus freedom of conscience is perhaps one of humanity’s most vital freedoms of choice.
Many of us campaign for a world without socially acceptable and legally permissible aggressive violence and struggle to build a society with a peace based on a justice rooted in respect for human life and dignity. A culture of conscience is a step toward that society. Supporting Hyde, Helms, and the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act is a step toward that culture of conscience.
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For related posts, see:
Why the Hyde Amendment Helps Low-Income Women
Consistently Nonviolent Mutual Funds
Video of Thad Crouch with the same content as above:
Masking Up but Not Shutting Up: Defending Freedom of Speech during a Pandemic
by John Whitehead
Shortly after the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a global pandemic, activists and journalists raised concerns about how governments’ response to the crisis might restrict freedom of expression and other civil liberties. More than a year later, we have a better sense of how the pandemic response has limited press freedom and the flow of information in the world.
Some government regulations to stop Covid-19’s spread—such as mask requirements or social distancing measures—are reasonable and justifiable. Personal freedom is not the only value worth defending. Protecting the lives and health of people, especially vulnerable people, warrants certain restrictions.
However, many civil authorities have gone beyond reasonable restrictions to measures such as arresting and imprisoning journalists and others for their statements or shutting down media outlets and other platforms. Such restrictions on free speech sometimes have been questionably justified as necessary to prevent the spread of false information about the pandemic.
These issues’ significance extends far beyond both the current crisis and journalists’ work. Governments with the power to intimidate people or prevent information from being shared can use such power outside public health crises to silence activists or critics, including those working to defend life. Peace, pro-life, and social justice activists are all vulnerable to such power’s abuse. Even public health can suffer because of restrictions on free expression: governments can shut down criticisms of inadequate responses to crises.
Patterns of Repression
Human Rights Watch, in a February 2021 report, says that 51 governments have arrested, detained, or prosecuted thousands of people for criticizing the government response to the pandemic or other government policies. Covid-19-related public health measures have sometimes been invoked as reasons for this repression. The Committee to Protect Journalists estimated that 274 journalists had been jailed as of December 1, 2020—a new high since the 2016 peak of 272.
Different countries offer various examples of repression. In Russia, government officials prosecuted almost 200 journalists, activists, politicians and others between March and June 2020. Their alleged crime was spreading false information about Covid-19. The Chinese government reported in January 2021 that 17,000 people had been investigated the previous year for “fabricating and spreading Covid-19-releated false information online.”
Indian authorities arrested at least 640 people, including teachers, bloggers, and others, in the spring of 2020 for supposedly publishing false information about Covid. Turkey carried out a similar campaign in 2020 against “provocative Coronavirus posts” on social media, detaining over 500 people. In Vietnam, officials required 650 Facebook users to remove pandemic-related posts and fined more than 160 of them.
Human Rights Watch also notes that at least 12 countries have shut down, suspended, or otherwise interfered with newspapers, television stations, and social media accounts because of pandemic-related reports. In Malaysia, an Al Jazeera documentary on migrant workers’ plight during the pandemic was met with a police investigation that included questioning of journalists, a raid on Al Jazeera’s offices and two local television stations, confiscation of Al Jazeera computers, and refusal to renew two journalists’ visas. A migrant worker featured in the documentary was deported.
Health workers have been among those targeted for repression. Nine medical staff in Egypt who complained about a lack of protective medical equipment and Covid testing were detained on charges including “spreading fake news” and “misusing social media.” In May 2020, Dr. Ibrahim Bediwy warned about censorship in an online message that said “Any doctor in the current situation is not safe.” Bediwy was then arrested on terrorism charges and detained until January 2021.
Even wealth is not necessarily protection against repressive measures. Ren Zhiqiang, a prominent retired Chinese businessman, harshly criticized the government’s pandemic response. He was then detained by authorities, expelled from the Communist Party, and, in September 2020, sentenced to 18 years in prison. The sentence was supposedly for various financial crimes but may well have been punishment for his public comments.
Repression of speech sometimes has been violent or otherwise abusive. In India, police beat journalists in Hyderabad and Delhi in March 2020 In April 2020, journalists in Haiti were attacked by unidentified men while investigating claims that the government’s National Identification Office was violating social distancing guidelines. In Venezuela, police detained Iván Virgüez, a lawyer and human rights activist who had criticized the official pandemic response. While in police custody, Virgüez was kept handcuffed to a metal tube about two feet off the ground for two hours and denied use of a bathroom for over a day.
Perhaps the most notable example of abusive repression of journalism is the case of Mohamed Monir in Egypt. Monir’s reporting included criticism of the government’s pandemic response. Whether as retaliation for such criticism or for other reasons, Monir was arrested in June 2020 and charged with joining a terrorist group, spreading false news, and misusing social media. An older man with health problems, Monir spent over two weeks in detention and eventually died—of Covid-19.
Defending Freedom of Speech
Given Covid-19’s terrible toll—almost 2.7 million deaths, as of this writing—proper public health regulations are essential. However, justifiable concerns about Covid-19 should not be used to justify repressing dissent or criticism of civil authorities. Nor should concern about false information lead us to give government officials the right to decide which information is true or false and to enforce such decisions with harassment, fines, arrest, or imprisonment. Such policies are ripe for abuse and threaten all of us who wish to protect life and are willing to criticize those in power.
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For more of our posts on the pandemic, see:
The Random Death Sentence: COVID in Prisons and Jails
Sickness is the Health of the State? Civil Liberties and Conflict during a Pandemic
A Healing Metaphor: Pandemic as War
Post-pandemic: What Worries Me
“Millions Who Are Already Hanging by a Thread”: The Global Repercussions of Covid-19
Consistently Nonviolent Mutual Funds
For consistent-lifers saving for retirement and otherwise investing money, we offer this practical guide.
Social Responsibility
There are a good large number of mutual funds that have social responsibility criteria, generally aimed at peace and environmental concerns (here’s one list). Poverty concerns are generally addressed as part of social justice in a variety of ways. Racial equity is commonly a criterion.
Care must be taken to read the fund’s screening criteria, because some will actually include “abortion rights” as a positive in their screening. However, most ignore the matter entirely.
Abortion and Pro-Family
There are some funds that screen out abortion investments with a “pro-family” set of concerns but without screening out any military businesses – the Ave Maria Fund, Inspire, and the Timothy Fund.
Nonviolent Across the Board
Below in alphabetical order are known funds that have exclusions for both military or weaponry and abortion; other issues are normally included because that’s what “social responsibility” means.
We’d be delighted to hear of other funds and will add them to the web page list if more information comes in. Send to weekly@consistent-life.org.
Aquinas Fund
http://www.aquinasfunds.com/funds/catholic_equity.html
Follows the Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Catholic Investment Strategies
https://www.catholicinvestments.com
Follows the Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Praxis Funds with Everence
https://www.praxismutualfunds.com/
Now listed as faith-based; originally Mennonite.
Values screens: “We screen out companies for abortion, adult entertainment, alcohol, firearms, gambling, nuclear power, predatory lending, tobacco, and weapons production and support systems.”
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For another of our blog posts on practical personal practice, see
Lethal from the Start: Uranium Mining’s Danger to the Most Vulnerable
by John Whitehead
Nuclear weapons kill directly when they are exploded in wartime or in tests. They also kill indirectly: obtaining uranium, the metal used to produce both nuclear power and nuclear weapons, can expose people to radiation or other hazards. The results are often harmful, even lethal. As with nuclear testing, the people exposed to these hazards are frequently those whose race or other circumstances place them at the margins of the societies acquiring uranium.
Uranium can cause harm in various ways. Breathing in uranium dust or eating uranium-contaminated food can damage the kidneys and lead to kidney failure. Inhaling or ingesting uranium or being exposed to large amounts of it can also increase the likelihood of cancer from radiation emitted by the metal. Those involved in mining or processing uranium or who are otherwise exposed to it are at risk.
Uranium Mining among the Navajo
The United States’ production of its nuclear weapons took its toll, with a grim historical symmetry, on the original victims of US foreign policy, the Native Americans.
The southwestern United States contains significant uranium deposits. From the 1940s to the 1980s, mining companies extracted millions of tons of uranium from land in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah belonging to the Navajo Nation. The federal government used uranium from this land to build nuclear weapons. Work in the mines also provided Navajo men with much-needed employment. The mines, numbering over 500, eventually shut down. The consequences for the Navajo have been lasting and dire.
Miners lacked protective equipment and would bring dust from the mines home on their clothes. Debris from uranium mining made its way into the local communities. Some people even built their homes out of uranium.
Uranium-contaminated water was also a problem. Maria Welch, a researcher at the Southwest Research Information Center who is Navajo, recalls that “When they did the mining, there would be these pools that would fill up…And all of the kids swam in them.” Some people let their livestock drink contaminated water.
Uranium milling, the process by which uranium ore is converted into a more refined form, took place close to Navajo land. Radioactive waste from milling seeped into local groundwater. The most infamous incident was on July 16, 1979, at a New Mexico facility where uranium was processed. A facility wall broke, releasing tons of radioactive waste into the nearby Puerco River. Some Native American communities didn’t know about the accident for several days. Further, even when notified by the Indian Health Service not to use water contaminated by the accident, nearby residents didn’t necessarily have alternatives. Wildlife drinking the contaminated water died. The contamination spread to wells, sometimes leading to radioactivity levels 7,000 times the acceptable level. The wells were generally abandoned.
In recent years, Welch has studied hundreds of Navajo to determine the mining’s effects. She found that 27% of study participants had high levels of uranium in their urine, compared to 5% of the general US population. Within the Navajo Nation, cancer rates doubled from the 1970s to the 1990s. Stomach cancer rates among the Navajo are typically 15 times the national average—and sometimes even higher. Kidney disease has also been a problem in the community.
Helen Nez and her children drank water from a northeastern Arizona spring that contained uranium levels five times what is safe. Nez drank from the spring while she has pregnant. Of her 10 children, 4 died as toddlers. Three more children died as young adults. Her remaining children have health problems as adults.
Some efforts to redress this injustice have been made. The federal government has paid compensation to uranium miners. Also, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has done some work to clean up the contamination from uranium mining, while at least one mining company and its subsidiary have paid $1 billion in compensation and clean-up costs to the Navajo.
As of 2017, however, only 9 out 521 abandoned mines identified for federal clean-up had been addressed. The EPA estimated that financial settlements between the federal government and the mining companies would allow for cleaning up only 40% of the mines. Meanwhile, the abandoned mines continue to pose a health risk.
Sadie Bill, Helen Nez’s sister, comments, “We lost too many people.” She adds, “We don’t want our future young people to have to go through this again.”
Uranium Mining among Soviet Subjects
The Soviet Union’s uranium mining had similar health and environmental consequences among non-Russian peoples under Soviet control.
For example, uranium mining around the town of Mailuu Suu in Kyrgyzstan left significant residues of radioactive waste in the area. One result has been a cancer rate double that of the rest of Kyrgyzstan.
Another result has been higher levels of miscarriage, stillbirth, and birth anomalies than anywhere else in the country. Research in 2007 found radioactive uranium in the placentas of women in Mailuu Suu and nearby communities.
Minabar Umarova, chair of the town’s Women’s Committee, comments, “Our analysis in 2014 of health among local women and children in Mailuu Suu revealed that our town of 24,000 had 180 children [younger than 18] with disabilities. At the same time, the neighboring district of Suzak with more than 240,000 residents had only 165 disabled children.”
This contamination affects other areas as well. Landslides dump radioactive waste into a local river, which carries the contaminants into other communities, including neighboring Uzbekistan. Similar to the Puerco River disaster, a 1958 incident led to 600,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste being released into the Mailuu Suu river.
In the decades since Kyrgyz independence from the Soviet Union, Mailuu Suu has received aid from the World Bank and European Union to remedy the damage from uranium mining.
Further west, Czechoslovakia was a significant uranium mining center during the period the country was dominated by the Soviet Union. At the town of Jáchymov, a notorious mining site, lung cancer was a frequent disease among miners. Average miner life expectancy in the town was 42. Uranium mining at Jáchymov would also sometimes use slave labor. An investigation in the early 1990s found that, as in the Navajo Nation, radioactive materials would sometimes end up as building materials for locals’ homes.
Consistently Deadly
Nuclear weapons’ ultimate end is to cause death. Besides their use in wartime, they also cause death during testing and when the materials to make these weapons are first produced. We shouldn’t forget the dangers of uranium mining, whether the mining is done to make nuclear weapons or to generate nuclear power. Nor should we forget that those who suffer the mining’s effects are frequently vulnerable people, far from the centers of decision-making power.
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This is a companion piece to “The Affairs of a Handful of Natives”: Nuclear Testing and Racism, in which John Whitehead takes the same approach of considering racial minority groups suffering from nuclear testing, widened to all five of the major nuclear weapons testing countries.
For our posts on similar topics, see:
Nuclear Disarmament as a Social Justice Issue
An Inferno That Even the Mind of Dante Could Not Envision”: Martin Luther King on Nuclear Weapons
The Reynolds Family, the Nuclear Age and a Brave Wooden Boat
Nukes and the Pro-Life Christian: A Conservative Takes a Second Look at the Morality of Nuclear Weapons
The Danger That Faces Us All: Hiroshima and Nagasaki after 75 Years
A Global Effort to Protect Life: The UN Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons
Let us all agree on this one simple thing: It is not OK to kill people.
by Robert Randall (reprinted)
It is not OK to kill people because you don’t like them.
It is not OK to kill people because they don’t like you.
It is not OK to kill people because they are different from you.
It is not OK to kill people because of what they believe.
Or because of what they don’t believe.
Or because they believe differently than you do.
It is not OK to kill people because they are wrong.
It is not OK to kill people because of who or what they are.
It is not OK to kill people because they are male.
It is not OK to kill people because they are female.
Or because they are any other gender or genders or gender-less.
It is not OK to kill people because they are straight.
Or gay,
Or bi.
Or trans.
It is not OK to kill people.
It is not OK to kill people before they are born.
It is not OK to kill people after they are born.
It is not OK to kill children. Or young people. Or middle-aged people. Or old people.
It is not OK to kill people because they are disabled in any way.
It is not OK to kill people because they are a different race.
It is not OK to kill people because they are aboriginal.
Or because they are white.
Or because they are black. BLACK LIVES MATTER.
Or because they are yellow.
Or because they are brown.
Or because they are red.
Or because they are any other color or shade or race or ethnicity.
It is not OK to kill people.
It is not OK to kill people because they were born in a different place than you.
It is not OK to kill people because they are from a different country.
It is not OK to kill people because they are Chinese.
Or Russian.
Or American.
Or Iraqi.
Or Ukrainian.
Or Afghan.
Or Sudanese.
Or Yemeni.
Or from any of 190 other countries.
Or without a country.
It is not OK to kill people by refusing them asylum or refugee status.
It is not OK to kill people by deporting them.
It is not OK to kill people.
It is not OK to kill people because they are a different ethnicity than you.
It is not OK to kill people because they are native people.
Or Kurds.
Or Chechens.
Or Hutu.
Or Karen.
Or Anglo.
Or Armenian.
Or Uighur.
Or Rohingya.
Or any of thousands of ethnic groups or tribes or cultures.
It is not OK to kill people.
It is not OK to kill people because they have a different religion than you do.
It is not OK to kill people because they are Hindu.
Or because they are not Hindu.
It is not OK to kill people because they are Muslim.
Or because they are not Muslim.
It is not OK to kill people because they are Christian.
Or because they are not Christian.
It is not OK to kill people because they are Jewish.
Or Sunni.
Or Shia.
Or Catholic.
Or Protestant.
Or Buddhist.
Or any brand or subset of any of those things.
Or any of hundreds of other faiths and religions.
Or because they are not any particular one of those.
Or because they are none of those.
It is not OK to kill people for any “religious” reason whatsoever.
It is not OK to kill people.
It is not OK to kill people even if God tells you to kill people.
That is never the voice of God.
It is not OK to kill people if some religious leader tells you to do so.
That is not the voice of God, either.
It is not OK to kill people if some political leader tells you to do so.
That is not the voice of God, either.
It is not OK to kill people if your country tells you to do so.
Your country is not God, either.
It is not OK to kill people even if you are ordered to do so.
It is not OK to kill people even if you are in a uniform.
It is not OK to kill people who are in a uniform which is different from yours.
It is not OK to kill people even if it’s your job. Leave that job.
It is not OK to kill people because they are targeted.
It is not OK to kill people even if they are “collateral damage.”
It is not OK to kill people because their politics are different than yours.
Or their economics.
It is not OK to kill people because they are liberal. Or conservative.
It is not OK to kill people because they are capitalists.
Or socialists.
Or communists.
Or libertarians.
Or Georgists.
Or federalists.
Or one worlders.
Or decentralists.
Or anything else you may describe them as.
It is not OK to kill people.
It is not OK to kill people because they are rich.
It is not OK to kill people because they are poor.
It is not OK to kill people by making them poor.
It is not OK to kill people who are nationalists.
It is not OK to kill people who renounce nationalism.
It is not OK to kill people who are patriots, no matter to which country.
And it is not OK to kill people who are citizens only of the world.
It is not OK to kill people.
It is not OK to kill people because of what they do. Or did.
Or because of what they might do.
Or because of what they didn’t do.
Or because of what they won’t do.
It is not OK to kill people even if you think they deserve it.
It is not OK to kill bad people.
It is not OK to kill people who kill people.
It is not OK to kill people who won’t kill people.
It is not OK to kill people because they are in a gang.
Or not in a gang.
Or in the wrong gang.
It is not OK to kill people while breaking the law.
It is not OK to kill people while enforcing the law.
It is not OK to kill people because they are terrorists.
It is not OK to kill people, because we become the thing we are trying to kill.
It is not OK to kill people no matter who you are.
It is not OK to kill people if you are a “regular guy”.
It is not OK to kill people if you are a “big man”.
It is not OK to kill people if you are a warlord.
It is not OK to kill people if you are a religious leader.
It is not OK to kill people if you head a large corporation.
It is not OK to kill people if you head a country.
It is not OK to kill people even if you head the most powerful country on earth.
It is not OK to kill people even if you are a great international statesman.
It is not OK to kill people.
It is not OK to kill people with your bare hands.
It is not OK to kill people with sticks and stones.
It is not OK to kill people with knives and swords.
It is not OK to kill people with guns.
It is not OK to kill people with poison.
It is not OK to kill people by medical procedure.
It is not OK to kill people with tanks.
It is not OK to kill people with lethal injections.
It is not OK to kill people with pathogens.
It is not OK to kill people with airplanes and bombs.
It is not OK to kill people with missiles.
It is not OK to kill people with drones.
It is not OK to kill people with nuclear weapons.
It is not OK to kill people with anything, no matter how creative you may be.
And it is not OK to build things to kill people.
Nor is it OK to kill people by denying them the things needed for life:
It is not OK to kill people by denying them adequate food.
It is not OK to kill people by denying them adequate health care.
It is not OK to kill people by denying them adequate shelter.
It is simply not OK to kill people.
It is not OK to kill people for fun.
It is not OK to kill people for entertainment.
It is not OK to kill people to stand your ground.
It is not OK to kill people for revenge.
It is not OK to kill people for justice.
It is not OK to kill people for democracy.
It is not OK to kill people because you are at war.
It is not OK to kill people to keep the peace.
It is not OK to kill people in a revolution.
It is not OK to kill people for the greater good.
It is not OK to kill people.
It is not OK to kill people for profit.
It is not OK to kill people for business purposes.
It is not OK to kill people because they have something you want.
It is not OK to kill people for their land.
It is not OK to kill people for their resources.
For water.
For trees.
For oil.
For gold.
For uranium.
And it is not OK to kill people because of what you have that they want, either.
It is not OK to kill people with pollution.
It is not OK to kill people by environmental destruction.
It is not OK to kill people by changing the climate.
It is not OK to kill people by killing the planet.
It is not OK to kill people. Or to kill the web of life on which people depend.
It is not OK to kill people for your own honor.
It is not OK to kill people for family honor.
It is not OK to kill people for national honor.
There is no honor in killing people.
It is not OK to kill people because of some great wrong done in the past.
It is not OK to kill people yourself.
And it is not OK to have someone else do the killing for you.
It is not OK to kill by gang.
It is not OK to kill by mob.
It is not OK to kill by thugs.
Or death squads.
Or people’s revolutionary army.
Or militia.
Or army.
Or navy.
Or air force.
Or space force.
It is not OK to kill people using other groups of people.
And it is not OK to tell them it’s OK to do it.
And it is not OK to train them to do it.
And it is not OK to tell them to do it.
And it is not OK to pay them to do it.
It is not OK to pay them directly to kill.
It is not OK to pay them indirectly to kill.
It is not OK to pay taxes to kill.
It is not OK to invest in killing people.
Because it is not OK to kill people.
It is simply not OK to kill people.
Let us all agree on this one simple thing: It is not OK to kill people.
Revision Date Nov. 1, 2020. This work is not copyrighted. It may be used and abridged as needed to promote its ethic that IT IS NOT OK TO KILL PEOPLE. It may NOT be changed in any way to indicate that it might ever be OK to kill people. For more information or electronic copies contact Robert Randall, 275 Andy Tostensen Road, Brunswick, GA 31523-6204 USA; 912-399-4862; rrandall@compuserve.com
Reflections from My Decades of Consistent Life Ethic Experience
by Fr. Jim Hewes
In 1978, Frank Staropoli and I founded the Diocesan Human Life Commission, with our charter clearly being what was later called a “consistent life ethic” or a “seamless garment.”
During those years, when we tried to reach out to pro-life groups, we ordinarily didn’t find the warmest reception because of our willingness to not be just anti-abortion but also concerned about that life outside the womb. Abortion was still our paramount concern, because if one doesn’t exist, the other human rights will not come into play. Nor will people be able to promote a consistent ethic of life, or live out the non-violent teachings of Jesus, if they aren’t allowed to exist.
In addition, the pre-born were our main priority because of the magnitude of the loss of life (over one million abortions a year at that time), and because their killing was legally sanctioned.
Yet we also knew that once you stop abortions and these children are able to enter the world, we can’t allow their dignity to be compromised or their lives to be then destroyed by wars, other forms of violence, and poverty. Unfortunately, we didn’t find much receptivity with the social justice groups because of our emphasis and priority on the abortion issue.
We had many talented pro-life people come on the Human Life Commission, but they eventually left because of our spending time on other issues about life after birth. For example, we co-sponsored Fr. Dan Berrigan, who came to Rochester. Fr. Berrigan protested about nuclear concerns outside the gates of the Seneca Army Depot in a county in the Diocese, and he also stood in protest in front of Planned Parenthood in the city of Rochester.
Daniel Berrigan and friends, sit-in in Rochester
On the other hand, we had many gifted people who worked in the social justice/peace area, who came on the Commission but also eventually left because they felt we put too much emphasis on abortion.
So one side felt that the consistent ethic of life weakens or “waters down” the importance of abortion. The other side felt there was too much emphasis on abortion, to the detriment of other important issues of life.
We believed either of these positions were misconceptions of what a consistent life ethic really meant. I find myself 40 years later still dealing with these same misconceptions and inconsistencies.
Misconceptions
The problem is both sides have misunderstood or misused the “consistent ethic of life.”
One side, at times, misuses the consistent ethic of life by de-emphasizing the priority and paramount importance of abortion by trying to make all issues have the same importance.
The lives of 900,000 preborn children end every year in the United States from abortions. What would we think if 900,000 toddlers or 900,000 immigrants or 900,000 African American men were killed every single year? In addition, the UN estimates between 45-50 million abortions, that many pre-born children’s lives ended every year world-wide. This translates into 900,000 human individuals terminated each week. That means over 125,000 human beings are destroyed every day (plus millions of women whose lives are devastated by their abortions). How can the magnitude of that violence not dwarf every other issue by a mile, unless one holds that preborn children aren’t really human beings?
The other side emphasizes the priority and paramount importance of abortion but tends to neglect other issues. For example, what about the Iraq War, where between 100,000 to 600,000 civilians, noncombatants, were killed in acts of this war, including pregnant women and their pre-born children? What about the executive act to allow $8 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia to continue to bomb and kill those in Yemen, especially innocent women (some of whom may be pregnant) and children? What is really the meaning of us as pro-life people, if we help women, so they won’t have abortions but choose life, yet support a candidate who later fails to fully respond to them in their great need? Or who sends these same un-aborted lives after they grow up to be killed or kill others through violent conflicts and wars, or die because of poverty and neglect?
I’m not saying pro-life people have to be involved in every issue of life, but how much time does it take to send a letter? Or for peace and justice people to support pro-life initiatives like supporting the states to stop funding Planned Parenthood and to withhold Medicaid and other federal money from organizations that perform abortions, to cut taxpayer funding under the Title X program from any facility that performs or refers for abortions, such as Planned Parenthood; to keep in place the “Mexico City Policy,” ensuring that tax dollars will not fund the abortion industry overseas; to back a rule requiring insurers to specify which health insurance plans cover abortion; to support the conscientious objector protections for those who refuse to participate in abortion; to support that section that ended the Obamacare mandate, which forced employers to cover abortion in health insurance they offered to their employees; to push hard for the Senate to pass key legislation to protect babies (like the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act and the Born Alive Act)?
The problem is pro-life people too often give politicians a free pass on other issues of life, if they’re against abortion. Then other social justice people give a free pass to politicians who support immigration reform or health care, but vote against any legislation which would protect the pre-born.
People are inconsistent if they think that they can defend a person who takes a pro-life position on certain life issues like abortion but refuses to even acknowledge other life issues and their proper importance; or on the other hand, supports issues of peace and justice but doesn’t see the inconsistency of not offering justice and peace to the pre-born.
Complementing
Later on the US Bishops would state: “This focus [on abortion] and the Church’s firm commitment to a consistent ethic of life complement each other. A consistent ethic of life, far from diminishing a concern for abortion or equating all issues touching on the dignity of human life, recognizes the distinctive character of each issue while giving each its proper role within a context of a coherent vision.” (Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities, A Reaffirmation 1985 p.3-4)
Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who popularized the consistent ethic of life, in a statement entitled “Deciding for Life” on October 1, 1989, stated: “Not all values, however, are of equal weight. Some are more fundamental than others. On this Respect Life Sunday, I wish to emphasize that no earthly value is more fundamental than human life itself. Human life is the condition for enjoying freedom and all other values. Consequently, if one must choose between protecting or serving lesser human values that depend upon life for their existence and life itself, human life must take precedence.”
Cardinal Bernardin would state in one of his other presentations: “The fundamental human right is to life – from the moment of conception until death. It is the source of all other rights.” Cardinal Bernardin told the National Catholic Register in 1988, “I don’t see how you can subscribe to the consistent ethic and then vote for someone who feels that abortion is a ‘basic right’ of the individual. The consequence of that position would be an absence of legal protection for the unborn.”
Later, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in their 1998 document, “Living the Gospel of Life” would affirm our approach by stating:
Opposition to abortion and euthanasia does not excuse indifference to those who suffer from poverty, violence and injustice. Any politics of human life must work to resist the violence of war and the scandal of capital punishment. Any politics of human dignity must seriously address issues of racism, poverty, hunger, employment, education, housing, and health care. … But being ‘right’ in such matters can never excuse a wrong choice regarding direct attacks on innocent human life.”
Indeed, the failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the ‘rightness’ of positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human community. If we understand the human person as the ‘temple of the Holy Spirit’ — the living house of God — then these latter issues fall logically into place as the crossbeams and walls of that house. All direct attacks on innocent human life, such as abortion and euthanasia, strike at the house’s foundation.
The US Bishops in “Faithful Citizenship-Forming Consciences” in 2019 would also mirror this approach by stating that all issues of life are important, but abortion is the issue of “preeminent priority.”
The members of the Diocesan Human Life Commission who eventually remained were solidly for the consistent ethic of life, with a priority on the abortion issue. I saw those that stayed become more consistent in how they viewed all issues concerning life, not just abortion.
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For more of our posts from Fr. Jim Hewes, see:
Consistent Life History: Being Across the Board
Death Penalty and other Killing: The Destructive Effect on Us
For more of our posts answering criticisms of the Consistent Life Ethic, see:
Does the Consistent Life Ethic Water Down Life Issues?
Equal Concern for Each Human Being, Not for Each Human Issue
Is Abortion Different from Other Violence?